Honor's Code

Now we’re in the home stretch. My 4 favorite Bosses in World of Warcraft to tank. #4 At #4 on the countdown, we go to the ancient halls of Ulduar, and the Spark of Imagination. One of the great tragadies of Wrath’s design is that if you weren’t around when Ulduar was current content, you liklely haven’t seen it. It, and Naxx, have been relegated to the same level as pre-Wrath content. It’s a shame because there are some really cool fights in there. Fights like Mimiron. Mimiron was a 4 Phase fight, and my favorite part of it was that your job as a Tank changed from Phase to Phase. In Phase 1, you tanked a mini-Flame Levithan (an earlier boss). This phase tested your cooldown usage, and for Paladins who lacked a second cooldown at the time, it tested your coordination with your healers for external cooldowns. In Phase Two, there wasn’t really anything to tank, so you whacked on the boss which looked a little big like a Tie Fighter. Then in Phase 3, you did some add tanking as the r...

The idea of healing again got me thinking about my sorted past with the Holy tree. It started out in what is now known as Vanilla. I dinged level 60 about 2 months before the original Naxxrammus came out. I was trying to catch on with a guild raiding Molten Core, Zul’Gurub, and Ahn’qiraj20. Back then, if you wanted to raid as a Paladin, you had one choice, and only one choice, and that choice was Holy. I had no issue with it at the time. Holy at that point was two things. Spamming Flash of Light, and spamming Decursive. Decursive was a wonderful little addon at the time. You hit the button and it figured out who to cleanse and cleansed them for you. And for certain fights, it was the only button I needed to push. Magmadar, Garr, and Lucifron can all die in the firey pit from whence they came. Over and over and over again. Debuffs go up, Debuffs get cleansed. It wasn’t exactly the most exciting game play in the world. But I went through most of Ahn’Qiraq, ZG, and MC. I got reall...

I'm a bit late to the party on this one, but the shared topic on Blog Azeroth is asking about what we think are the best changes that have happened to WoW in the last 5 years. You can see the posts from other people on the Twisted Nether site. I haven't been playing all 5 years. In fact, I started playing around time the An'quiraj was added to the game (Early 2006, or Patch 1.9 for those of you scoring at home). My main toon has always been my Paladin, so I wanted to concentrate on the best Paladin changes over my time of playing World of Warcraft. But before I do, I want to talk about what I feel is the absolute best change made to World of Warcraft in the entire time that I've been playing, the 10 and 25 man Raid Split. Before, you would get to certain point in the end game where you found a wall. Here and no further. No new content for you unless you move on up to the 'Big Leagues' of 25 man raiding. It put people like myself, who wanted to raid ...

Over the weekend, I had an opportunity to run Zul’Aman two times. The first run was with group from Mal Katai. About 30 minutes before they invited me, I had switched from Protection to Retribution. I had been working on a new quest that recently opened for me from the Netherwing called Disrupting the Twilight Portal . It seemed pretty straightforward. Go to Nagand and kill the Twilight mobs. What I didn’t realize until I got over there was that there were 3 or 4 pathing level 72 Elite mobs. The other problem that presented itself was almost all the mobs were caster types. It seemed like I’d pull Elite every time I was fighting these casters. I managed to solo one of the Elites, but at the end I was almost dead. After a couple of frustrating runs, I decided to hearth back to Shattrah and portal to Ironforge. Next thing you know, I’m a Ret Paladin. It was far easier to take out the Twilight mobs as Ret and I managed to avoid pulling the Elites. I wasn’t quite finished with the q...

Last night there was a strong push from some of the members of Dominion to go kill Kael and Vashj one last time before the Expansion Pack to let people get their Rings and Titles. It turns out that if you had the quest for the Vials of the Eternity in your quest book when Patch 3.0.2 hit, you could still get the title from completing it. The night started out with a real treat when I saw Aoesrus got an invite to the raid. Aoes and I have very disparate gaming schedules so we don’t get a chance to run together very often. It’s always nice when we do. Lady Vashj We quickly cleared Hydross’ and Lurker’s trash and activated the bridge to Vashj. I don’t care how many times you’ve seen it - that is a seriously cool way to get to a Boss. Vashj was the very first boss I went to with Dominion, and because it’s a two tank fight I had to go Holy. (What is it with the ‘Hat’ bosses; I had to go Holy for Archimonde as well). I was actually worried Vlad would ask me to throw on my Healing s...

Me, I was in Black Temple, and not watching the Election coverage. I voted, and then let the chips fall where they may. Regardless of who won, the sun was coming up this morning, and life would move on. What was cool about last night was Chief, my Paladin Class Officer got a chance to raid as Protection. So when we got to Najentus, I suggested that he be the Main Tank. The guy did an excellent job and soon we were NOT looting Plate Boots from him. I started doing a little research since it seems my fate to have Sabatons of the Righteous Defender until I quit the game. It looks like as soon as I hit 75, I can switch over to my Jungle Stompers. Then somewhere around 78, I can run Stratholme Past (Normal) and hope to get Slaughterhouse Sabatons to drop. Failing that, I can pick up Toxin-Tempered Sabatons from the Knights of the Ebon Blade at Revered. Then at 80, I can pick up Tempered Titansteel Treads from a Blacksmith. So, I'll have Troll Feet for a while, but I don't pla...

I had an interesting situation come up on Saturday night. My plan had been to log on and maybe work on a little Netherwing rep. I’m only Honored and I don’t think I’ll make it to revered before Lich King. I received a message from Leejenkins (aka Raistilan/Dotslover) from the previous nights Zul’Aman run. He wanted to know if I was saved to Mount Hyjal. I wasn’t. He invited me to a ‘trash’ party that he was putting together to help celebrate his Birthday. (Happy Birthday Raist!) Raistilan was one of my close friends in Mal Katai and we still talk quite a bit. I've helped him as he leveled up and then started gearing up Leejenkins who is a Protection Paladin. I also seem to have influenced by previous GM in Heroes Inc to roll a Protection Paladin, and he's even made a couple of posts on MainTankadin. My guild, Dominion, is generally not really cool with you running 25 mans with another guild. I knew I wouldn’t be online again until the Tuesday reset so I knew there was...

We still had some time left, so we decided to head over to Sunwell. My goal had always been Illidan so anything in Sunwell would be pure gravy at this point. Dominion had been in Sunwell Monday night while I was offline. Sunwell Plateau is very similar to Magister’s Terrace. The art team really outdid itself and the place is just beautiful. There is a ton of trash to wade through to get to the first boss, Kalecgos. During the trash I was usually tanking a Vindicator. This is a melee mob who hits decently hard and it was pretty easy to tank. As we explored Sunwell, people in the raid started asking about the various things going on, like who Avenna was, and I was happy to explain. Someone suggested that I need to get my LoreMaster title. I’m not entirely sure it was meant as a compliment. Next thing you know, I’m staring down a big ole dragon. They had already made attempts on Kalecgos with Vlad/Kee/Cuch tanking so I tried to stay out of the way and be a backup. The Kalecgos...

(Congratulations to the Philadelphia Phillies and their fans on winning the World Series. I used to follow the Phillies when I was a kid, but I haven't follwed them closely in years and years. I don’t really follow baseball anymore. The NFL is my passion these days. GO PANTHERS !!!) We had a bit of unfinished business with Illidan in Black Temple. I always knew I would be a Flame tank for Illidan. Very few guilds would allow a Protection Paladin to Main Tank Illidan as we had very few tools for dealing with his Enrage in Phase 5. Some guilds mistakenly believed that his Shear attack was only preventable with the Warrior’s Shield Block skill, but with sufficient gear, a Paladin could be equally immune to Shear with Holy Shield. So I worked diligently to prepare myself. I read strat after strat and watched at least a dozen different YouTube videos of Druids, Paladins, and Warriors tanking Flames of Azzinoth. I farmed up over 100 Badges to buy the entire Fire Resist...

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 s...

"Let me explain... No, there is too much. Let me sum up." Man, it is nice to be back. My synapses are firing and I can actually make a coherent thought. The medicine the doctors had me on was great but it made it a little hard to think straight. If you are at all concerned over the recent Paladin nerfs, I strongly recommend you check out Josh's blog, http://e4ae.blogspot.com/2008/10/chicken-little-sky-is-not-falling.html We really don't know how the Seal Nerfs will affect Protection threat. We know on Beta we are still doing 'enough' threat so as to not cap the DPS. I'm going to put my confidence in Blizzard that if Protection Paladins start having issues with maintaining threat, they will address it. One idea would be increasing One Handed Weapons Specialization or increasing the percentage on Shield of the Templar (the talent that increases the damage of our 'Shield' spells, i.e. Shield of Righteousness, Avenger's Shield and Holy Shield) ...

Only Council and Illidan remained alive in Black Temple. Dominion was out to change that. At first, it seemed like the universe itself was conspiring against me. First, it was Wednesday night. Wednesday is my usual night off, but I was able to get clearance to log on. Okay, first hurdle avoided. The next was I was (and still am) sick. I hate to admit I was sick, but the 100.2 on the thermometer is sort of hard to argue against. I apologize in advance if this isn't too coherent. I'm still running a fever and I have taken my body weight in pharmaceuticals. Undaunted I logged in. I knew we would get a shot at Illidan, and I didn't want to miss it. We started out with Council. I was once again offhealing our Druid tank. I really wanted to see if I could hold the Rogue since I do so much more physical threat now, but this might have been our last foray into Black Temple. I simply decided it wasn't worth the time or effort to try to argue with my Raid Leader over it. ...

When Patch 3.0 hit, most of my mods stopped working, and really no one could do much for a couple of days. I decided now was the time to tame my UI. I have wanted to clean up my UI for a long time, but I knew it would take a period of adjustment and I didn't want to hurt my Raid performance any by adjusting to a new UI. BEFORE This was what my old UI looked like: AFTER And this is my new one: Now let me explain how I got from BEFORE to AFTER. It started with a post from Anna of TooManyAnnas where she had posted her UI. It was beautiful. Then Josh over at EyeForAnEye posted a UI as well. It looked great, too. Both posted a laundry list of mods they used to make their UI. That was great. I went and downloaded the Mods, installed them and brought up WoW. You ever bought something and you get it home and you look at what you've got and then you look back at the picture and you think 'this doesn't exactly look like that'. That was my ...

I'd bet it all on a good run of bad luck Seven come eleven and she could be mine Luck be a lady, and I'm gonna find love Comin' on the bottom line I don’t know how she did it, but my Raid Leader, Vlad, has managed to get Dominion raiding again. We really want to see Illidan dead before the Expansion. I know it probably doesn’t always come across in the blog, but I do have a ton of respect for the work Vlad does for the guild. I think our success on Thursday may have helped. People can see that Black Temple is severely nerfed. Raiding is much more relaxed, and everyone was having a good time. I was given the Main Tank job on Najentus. I made sure to time my Bubble Wall up for when we broke the shield. He was dead before he could bubble a second time. We went to Supremus. For some reason, he just ignored me at first and killed one of our DPS Warriors with Hurtful Strike. I know I was in melee, but he didn’t seem to pick me for a target. Our raid has returne...

When Patch 3.0 hit all my gear was changed. I wasn't sure what to wear anymore. Since I wanted to use the best gear for the job I went about making a spreadsheet to compare the items as they were reitemized. Here is the full spreadsheet, formulas included. http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pxRKUgjn9TRr-KY-8OzuQRQ . I could have used WoWhead Item Weight formula, but the one they had for Protection Paladins was not properly weighted. If you'd like to download the spreadsheet, change formulas or add items, you can get it here: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pxRKUgjn9TRr-KY-8OzuQRQ&output=xls This assumes you are not hit capped and will have Touched By the Light, and the new Redoubt. Where a piece had slots, I used Epic gems from Badges. You will see in parentheses next to each item what gem was used (sta = stamina). The ranking was based on a series of formulas that looks at how the item budget contributes to Mitigation (Armor, Defense, Block Rating, Par...

Last night Dominion put together a raid into Black Temple. I think the hardest part of the entire night was finding 25 people who actually wanted to raid. I was Prot spec, and working on Netherwing Dailies when I got the invite. I used to hate these dailies and rarely did them as Prot. Now Prot soloing is so much nicer, I am doing them again. Black Temple is now ridiculously easy. We downed 3 Bosses in 90 minutes, and the only reason we stopped was that we started too late, and it was getting onto midnight. Paladin Blessings are easier to coordinate because we only have 4, but 2 of them are talented. I had to ask each Paladin if they had put talent points in Blessing of Kings. Actually, I should have let the Paladin class officer do that. He was on his Shadow Priest so I had kind of taken over. Nobody said anything to me, so hopefully I didn't upset anyone by overstepping my bounds a little. Eventually we got it all sorted out. I had so much fun in there. It was great to c...

I was planning a short night last night on WoW since I had promised Mrs. Hammer we would watch a movie. So I decided to do a little soloing in the Netherwing mines as Prot. Sure, I could have been Ret, and I will likely be Ret for leveling, but I wanted to see how soloing was as Prot. Wow. I did my normal run in the Netherwing mines, meaning I went and pulled a bunch of Flayers and Ravagers and started Consecrating and using Holy Shield. Only now I had Hammer of the Righteous, and I was using Seal of Vengeance instead of Seal of Righteousness or even Seal of Wisdom. See before, I could start getting really low on mana after a while and I would need to drink after each combat. Not last night. I actually ended up Judging Light instead of Wisdom because I rarely had a mana issue thanks to Blessing of Sanctuary. I was using my unenchanted Suneater. I really should be using Kings Defender, but I think the two swords are close enough and I really dig the skin on the Suneater. Pr...

I decided to go ahead and spec Protection when I got my talents reset last night. Paladin tanking is much more active now. I literally have no free Global Cooldowns. Every time the Global Cooldown is up, I need to hit something, especially on an Undead/Demon. Mana was not an issue, despite having less than 4000 mana unbuffed. I was sitting near full the entire time I was actually tanking something. I need to do my Island daily route and see what is different there. Not all of my Addons worked, even the ones that had said they were 'WotLK ready'. My biggest problem is OneBag/OneBank is not working. I tried Bagnon, but that didn't work either. With all the stuff I carry in my bags and bank, I need to find a replacement for that quickly. Pally Power worked fine. ZThreatMeter seemed to work okay. Someone in the raid said Omen was updated to use the Blizzard API like Z so I should check that out. Tankadin2 worked but all I could see was a huge frame listing out my ta...