Honor's Code

"And there were in the same country sheperds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them; and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you: Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men." As Linus finishes he turns, walks back to the wings and calmly asserts, " That's what Christmas is all about , Charlie Brown." Merry CHRISTmas!!!

My sympathy if you are stuck at work today. You'll get through it. 1. What did you do in the World of Warcraft in 2009 that you’d never done before? I had a max level alt. I got the Hunter to 70 shortly before the end of the Burning Crusade but outside of Gruul's Lair I never really got to do much with him. In Wrath, I've raided up to Lady Deathwhisper on the Hunter. And though it's not some I've NEVER done, in 2009, I voluntarily healed again for the first time since Vanilla. Honors is now Tank/Heal with the Hunter for my DPS needs. I'm literally the swiss army knife I thought my Druid might be. Whatever you need for a group, I'm there. I'm also terribly rusty and I'll regale you with an account of my first time healing soon. 2. What was your favorite new place that you visited? I think Ice Crown is actually too new, so I'm going with Ulduar. The instance was huge, and it was beautiful. The fights were varied, and there was plenty of different t...

The new LFD (Looking For Dungeon) System is great. The developers did an excellent job with the design of the systems. There are plenty of rewards for people at all levels and all Tiers of Level 80 from the guy who just dinged all the way up to the guy who was farming Heroic Anub’arak the night before the Patch. Right now, you have an abundance of T9 raiders carrying people in random LFG groups. I’ve done this several times myself. I’ll be in a group where I’m first on DPS, Damage Done, and Damage Taken. If I would have used Judgment of Light, I might have been first in Healing Done as well. I’ve had the same thing happen on my Hunter where I’m the only DPS in the group over 3k. Enjoy it now, and if you are a lowered geared toon, get all the dungeons run as fast as you can, because this isn’t going to last. The Tier 9 Raiders are in the LFG for one reason, Emblems of Frost. I typically only run the Random Heroic for the two Emblems of Frost it provides. I don’t need Triu...

Schools out and various industries are in the midst of Christmas shutdowns. You might find yourself with a little extra time on your hands this time of year. You also might find yourself lacking regular internet access, and be looking for some good reading material. This year my Christmas present to you is a book recommendation. The book I'm recommending you read over your Holiday break is call The Science of God: The Convergence of Scientific and Biblical Wisdom . Schroeder is a physicist and Bible scholar. His previous work was called Genesis and the Big Bang . In The Science of God , he compares the Genesis account of creation with current scientific knowledge about the origin of life. No doubt he is well versed in both the Bible and biology; he's also a skilled pedagogue, explaining abstract or counterintuitive concepts in lay terms. Some of his arguments (for instance, that the sequence of Genesis creation is congruent with evolution's progression from ...

Devolve Versus Northrend Beasts My guild's Warlock put together this video of my guild defeating Deathbringer Saurfang. Nice work! If you are Alliance, you can see the interaction between Saurfang and Saurfang the Younger.

The final Boss fight available to us right now in Ice Crown Citadel is Deathbringer Saurfang. We've now fought this guy twice now with similar results. The first week we went in there with a really good mix. We had a Boomkin, Survival Hunter, Destro Lock, Arcane Mage, Mutilate Rogue and Arms Warrior. The second week we were a bit melee heavy. The only Ranged we had was our Mage and the two Healers. Deathbringer Saurfang was formerly known as Saurfang the Younger before he was killed by Arthas at the Wrath Gate. When you arrive at this area either via the Orgrims Hammer of the Teleporter, he's actually not there. There is a group of Kor'kron and High Overlord Saurfang. Once you talk to Saurfang the encounter will begin and Deathbringer Saurfang will come running out. Before you talk to Saurfang have your Raid work out positioning. Have someone 'stand in' for Deathbringer and make sure everyone knows where to stand. Then collapse back on the start and talk to Hi...

This blog post will discuss events from the Halls of Reflection. There are major spoilers contained herein. This post is also something of a rant. Read on at your own risk. Still with me? Good. When you arrive at the Halls of Reflection there is a dialog between Uther the Lightbringer’s spirit and either Jania or Sylvanas. One of the first things that Uther tells her is that there must always be a Lich King. What an amazing let down. All this time we’ve been fighting our way to Ice Crown Citadel to end the scourge threat, and then Uther tells us it’s all for naught for there must always be a Lich King. There was a time, even as late as the Second War, when there wasn’t a Lich King. Since there hasn’t always been a Lich King, why must there always be a Lich King. It’s a very unsatifying ending. In fact, it’s no ending at all. Stories have a conflict and a climax. They reach a resolution. Without being able to destroy the Lich King, the story never reaches a resolu...

I was very excited as we formed up the Raid for Ice Crown Citadel. Please note, this is a description of my night raiding Ice Crown. There are spoilers in this post. Read on at your own risk. Our team consisted of Boston (Blood DK Tank), Honorshammer (Protection Paladin extraordinaire), Blackhaus (Disc/Holy Priest), Stark (Resto Shaman), Lakini (Boomkin/Resto), Donkatonk (Arcane Mage), Neovomonica (Destro Lock), Danath (Arms Warrior), Blueshield (Arms Warrior), and Ofn (normally Combat, but has switched to Mutilate for 3.3). Once inside I checked my toon and saw that my Dodge was at 7.09%. This wasn’t unexpected but it still made me a sad panda to see it. The atmosphere of Ice Crown is really well done. The art is beautiful and the music really sets the mood well. We started up the event and listened to Arthas and Tirion yelling at each other. We learned the fate of Bolvar Fordragon and set force to save him. It was actually nice to have trash again. I guess ...

So news is out today that I've joined the team at Paladin Schmaladin . Think of it as World of Matticus for Paladins. My first article is up on the site now. It's an analaysis of the new weapons that came out in 3.3. I'll still be writing on my blog as well, so think of it as more of me to love.

The servers were up when I logged in last night, but I would quickly find that the Instance Servers, Battleground servers and Arena servers were down. What was worse was that if you tried to do an instance through the new LFG tool, you would get stuck at the loading screen. When you got tired of waiting and exited WoW, your character was in some sort of nether in between the servers. I discovered fairly quickly that most, if not everything I enjoy in WoW requires and instance server. Oh I knocked out some dailies on Honorshammer and my Hunter while I was waiting to see if the instances would come back up. Wednesday is my night off so I won't see IceCrown until Thursday at the earliest and that is looking sketchy due to the lack of sign ups. Of course, the patch is brand new and Ice Crown will last all the way to Cataclysm so there's no rush. I'm sure we'll get to the new Raid and 5 mans and see it all. But it was a very frustrating night.

Last night, our team went after finishing Trial of the Grand Crusader. We only had Anub’arak up and about 25 attempts left on the timer. Our team consisted of Boston (Blood DK), Honorshammer (Protection Paladin), Blackhaus (Holy Priest), Stark (Resto Shaman), Bluetide (Arms Warrior), Muddled (Arcane Mage), Donkatonk (Arcane Mage), Neovomonica (Destro Warlock), Ofn (Combat Rogue), and Lakini (Boomkin). There are multiple points in the Anub’arak fight where you can make a wipe inducing mistake. Our main issue is keeping Boston alive in Phase 3 while simultaneously healing the Leaching Swarm and Penetrating Cold. Our Holy Priest loses two GCDs (Global Cooldowns) taking care of Penetrating Cold and then we lose Boston, usually right after he takes a Freezing Slash. But it was hardly our only issue. On multiple attempts, we would lose people to the large Adds not getting interrupted. They cast a Shadow Strike which will one shot a raid member if they complete the cast. O...

It's almost time, time to pull the Holy Mightstone out of my Bank. It's been in there since I did the quest back at level 55 in what now is called Vanilla WoW. I've been saving it, saving it for Arthas. Now we storm his citadel. Arthas: Foolish Paladin. You think with your meagre powers you can defeat me? Honorshammer: Not with my powers alone. *Breaks stone* But with the power of those that come before. The power of all my fallen comrades. The power of all those whose lives you ruined. You who claim to be King of the Grave WILL taste death today. On the Light I swear it. My thanks to Maintankadin poster, Erendis for coming up with that. Today is Patch day. I am really excited to join my team as we dive into the first wing of Ice Crown Citadel. Of course it being Patch Day, be prepared for Extended Maintenance. Also be prepared for servers to be unstable and Addons to break. As I told a guildmate last night, it's a pessimistic view, but you're much less...

Gravity over at pwnwear did a series of posts explaining the game design issue of the number tanks required at each level of PVE content, 5 mans, 10 mans and 25 mans. He even tried to apply some supply and demand dynamics to the issue. The posts were so well done they prompted a response from Veneretio of Tanking Tips. Vene’s post underscored that the ratios were not the issue, but the design of fights was. He went on to give some examples of what he felt like were well designed fights and poorly designed fights. What was interesting to me was that every example he gave of a fight where he felt Blizzard got it right was a Burning Crusade fight. Both come to the conclusion that Tanks really just want to Tank. Sure, we can put on DPS gear and switch to a DPS spec for fights that only need one tank, and contribute to the raid, but we aren’t playing our toon in the way we really want to. They both also realize that the core issue is one of encounter design. If Encounters ...

Wow.com is reporting that ‘sources’ have told them Patch 3.3 will be released on December 8 th . If they are right, this is the last reset before we storm the gates of IceCrown. I can’t wait. Last night, we were set to do our normal farm run of ToC and Onyxia. Several of our regular crew was not available, but we were able to field a raid from our Guild. I noticed several people were bringing alts, so I asked if I could bring my Hunter alt along after ensuring we had the tanking covered. Boston, who was playing his Holy Paladin, agreed. I grabbed my Hunter, and my trusty Prairie Alpha, Watch, out of the stable. I made sure I had plenty of Mammoth Cutters. There was no chance I was going ‘pull a Taxi’ and run out of ammo during a Boss fight. I ran by the Auction House and grabbed a couple of ridiculously overpriced Flasks of Endless Rage. My Hunter has been speced into all 3 trees at one point or another. Seeing as how we didn’t have replenishment in the raid, I opted fo...

No 3.3 today. MMO-Champion seems to think it's next Tuesday. I'm still of the belief, based on the Blue's communication that we won't see it until after the ball drops (New Year's Eve reference). I love extended raid lockout. I absolutely love them. For a guild like Devolve, it means that we can attempt Hard Modes when the mix is right and leave them up when the mix is wrong. We're not so much a casual guild as an OTA guild (Over Traditional Age). Most, if not all of our members are 25 years of age and older with real life responsibilities like families, jobs, school, etc. The nights you get on, you get on and we love having you. The nights you can't, you can't and we understand. We've been extending our raid lock out for Trial of the Grand Crusader 10 man for two weeks now. We were fairly confident we could get through Heroic Beasts and Heroic Jarraxus, but none of us wanted to face down Heroic Faction Champions again. So instead we extend...