Honor's Code

I encourage you to go out today and vote. Vote your conscience. Besides the Presidency, there are many races for Senate, House of Representitives, and right on down to your City Council. It may even be the case that these local elections will have a greater impact on your life than the national ones. So get out there and vote! (If you need a little help with who to vote for, Honors recommends: http://www.focusvoter.com/ , but whomever you support, get out there and cast your ballot)

Friday night, we went Trick or Treating with Little Hammer. After we got home and put her to bed, I decided to log into WoW for a little bit. When I logged in, I got an invited to a Zul’Aman group. This group was unique in that the tanks were both going to be Protection Paladins, myself and Leejenkins (aka Raistilan/Dotslover) from Mal Katai. With two Protection Paladins, I was able to do some of the tanking jobs that I normally would have given my Warrior or Druid offtank. I actually was tanking Dragonhawk while Leejenkins handled the adds. Then I got a chance to tank Lynx Boss instead of the Spirit Lynx. In a first for ole Honorshammer, we managed to get all 4 timers. I would later learn this was pretty normal for this group (at least post Patch 3.0.2). After the timers were down, we went and killed Hex Lord and his cronies, and then faced down Zul’jin. I found tanking Zul’jin much easier since I had gotten a chance to tank him previously. I still had a little trouble durin...

Ret got hotfixed again. Okay, Blizzard is trying to get the spec under control I understand that. But Blizzard really needs to take more time examining what the changes to Retribution do to Holy and Protection when they nerf Ret. I don't believe they have really thought about what the nerf to Seal and Judgment damage have done to Holy, or low level Paladins who basically only have Seal and Judgment as their only means of DPS. This latest hotfix has added Forbearance back to Avenging Wrath. The goal here is preventing the Paladin from using Avenging Wrath while under the protection of the 'Bubble'. I can certainly understand that allowing the Paladin to increase his damage by 20% while completely immune to all damage and Crowd Control might have been a tad overpowered. But what was NOT considered is that this does to Protection. As Protection, I often open the fight with Avenging Wrath to really get a nice lead on threat. However, with the change adding Forb...

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...

Over on BRK , he posted a screen shot from Hallows Eve 2006 , and asked the innocent question: "Do you have screenshots from 2006 or earlier?" I'm glad you asked: June 2006. I was young Paladin of level 43 traveling through the lovely zone of Feralas. I came across one of my heroes from Warcrft 3: The Frozen Throne. Rexxar, Champion of the Horde. I was Retribution at the time using an odd build that was Retribution with a Sword and Board. It relied on using Vengenace and white damage to kill your foe while you kept yourself going with Seal of Light and Judgement of Wisdom.

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...