Honor's Code

So these are the T10 Tanking Set Bonuses. Death Knight • 2 piece bonus - Increases the damage done by your Death and Decay ability by 20%. • 4 piece bonus - When you activate Blood Tap, you gain 12% damage reduction from all attacks for 10 seconds. Druid • 2 piece bonus - Your Swipe (Bear) and Lacerate abilities deal 20% additional damage and the cost of your Rip ability is reduced by 10 energy. • 4 piece bonus - Your Enrage ability no longer decreases your armor and instead decreases all damage taken by 12%, and the periodic damage done by your Rake ability can now be a critical strike. Paladin • 2 piece bonus - Your Hammer of the Righteous ability deals 20% increased damage. • 4 piece bonus - When you activate Divine Plea, you gain 12% dodge for 10 seconds. Warrior • 2 piece bonus - Your Shield Slam and Shockwave abilities deal 20% increased damage. • 4 piece bonus - Your Bloodrage ability no longer costs health to use, and now causes you to absorb damage equal to 20% of...

Devolve Versus Northrend Beasts My guild's awesome Disc/Holy Priest shot this footage of us taking on Northrend Beasts.

We cleared out Onyxia and Normal ToC10 Tuesday night before heading over to Ulduar. Ulduar? Yep, Ulduar. My Raid Leader has a plan which I think is just brilliant. We are going to extend the raid ID until we finish Glory of the Ulduar Raider . We nearly had Glory of the Raider from Naxx finished but could never quite pull off an Undying run. One of those Undying wipes was caused by me. That motivates even more to help these guys get a shot at Ulduar Raider. We already had Orbit-uary, and Heartbreaker. Last night we knocked out Stokin’ The Furance, Crazy Cat Lady and I Choose You Steelbreaker. We tried for Disarmed, but we actually put too much DPS into Kologarn and he died before we could get the achievement. Now I had all of those achievements previously, as well as I Could Say This Cache Was Rare, but several of our raid team didn’t, so we were trying to get everyone caught up. The ones I still need are Lose Your Illusion (Thorim Hard), Firefighter (Mimiron Hard), Knock, Knoc...

There was a thread on Maintankadin asking about what people’s hopes were for Cataclysm. I started writing a response there and I quickly saw it wasn’t going to fit, so I made it a blog entry. The developers did a fantastic job with Wrath of the Lich King. My wildest hopes and dreams for the Expansion were actually realized. Paladins are now full fledged members of the tanking team across the game. We have two real cool downs, a real taunt, well itemized gear. We got a Shield Slam and some unique mechanics like Sacred Shield and Ardent Defender. Paladins can now stand toe to toe, not only with ANY raid boss in the game, but also against any other tanking class in the game. Raiding opened up and now 10 man Raiders can experience all of the raid game. Best of all, I haven’t been asked to spec Holy ONE TIME since I installed Wrath. After some initial turmoil, the guild situation in Wrath turned out to be better than I could have hoped. Boston ended up creating the exact guild I always want...

I've tried to explain to people that I have bad loot luck. I think it took my buddy Grim running with me in Normal Trial of the Champion over a dozen times with no Black Heart for him to get a clue. But I think our Onyxia run really demonstrates my lousy loot luck. That's two, count them two, Judgement Covers. The Judgement Cover is the Holy version of the Judgement Helm that drops from Onyxia. Of course, I was the only Paladin in the raid. So I now have my healing helm from Ony. This is really how loot worked at Level 60, and you have 40 people to try to get their Tier sets. Thank Blizzard for Tokens.

DK Tank Blogger pwnwear did a great post on Why He Loves Tanking . That got me to thinking, why is it I love to tank? Hero Complex I love being where the action is, and being fully engaged with the Boss. I come from a long background of single player games. In those games it's always your character fighting the Boss: Kyle Katarn versus Jerec, Revan versus Malak, The Exile versus Darth Traya. Even in Baldur's Gate, it's your party versus Saverok, you are in control of each party member. It's always you (the player) against the boss. Only tanks in World of Warcraft have that experience. Healers are furthest from the action, with their sole focus on the tank and their allies. DPS engages the Boss, but only Tank trades blows with him. My most recent experience of the joys of Tanking was on Heroic Northrend Beasts. Dreadscale submerged, and started heading towards the raid. The Ranged DPS and Healers scattered, but I was the guy running IN while everyone else ...

Blizzard has released the first tidbits of information about the final patch of Wrath of the Lich King, 3.3 also known as Ice Crown Citadel. Let me give you a sampling from the Under Developement site: Icecrown Citadel will feature a massive five-player dungeon sprawling across three wings of the citadel's foundation. While the Lich King's attention is focused on the Argent Crusade and the Knights of the Ebon Blade ripping through the front gates, players will be tested as they assist Jaina Proudmoore (Alliance) and Sylvanas Windrunner (Horde) in infiltrating the citadel through an alternate entrance. An epic quest line will present adventurers with the task of weakening Icecrown Citadel's forces, requiring that players defeat the challenges in each dungeon wing before venturing into the next one. Normal and Heroic versions of the dungeon will be accessible to players, although each wing will be considered a separate instance; therefore, on Heroic difficulty, each wing ...