On Tuesday we went to Ulduar and we did H-ToC 5-man Tuesday and Wednesday. I learned how to make the Wowhead pop up things.
My guild leader logged on on Friday around 9:30 Pm or so on Tuesday and after running H-ToC realized we had 11 80's on line so he started the invites for Ulduar. I personally have never been and I don't really know if the guild had run it before or not. I volunteered to drop out to allow the other person to go but, the guild leader asked me to stay. The other reason I was willing to drop was due to knowing the it would take an hour or more to get the run started. I was right. Around 11PM or so we finally roll into Ulduar. While the people who know what to do explain everything we run around killing the adds and column things. The first fight is explained and here we go. One shot on Flame Leviathan, one shot on Razorscale and two shot on Deconstructor. Might of the Leviathan drops and I win the roll. Very nice replacement for my Collar of Dissolution. Both the other bosses dropped something that would have been an improvement but, I passed on one since it was a minor improvement and I had just one the neck piece and lost the roll on the other piece. Overall a 14.5 DPS increase. Every bit helps right?
On Wednesday we ran H-ToC 5-man and The Edge of Ruin finally dropped. Which is a large improvement of my Wraith Spear. Around 100-150 DPS increase depending on what you go by.
In case you haven't noticed I figured out (read: finally looked up on wowhead) how to make the pop things when you link something from wowhead.
I still plan on making a list of improvements to get. I just haven't had time to do it yet.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Dailies Heroics and other games
It's been a week since I posted anything but, in all fairness I did not get much time in game due to personal life and a birthday (not mine) during the weekend. Since I last posted I have done dailies, ran some heroics and starting calculating to figure out what gear I can get based off of maxdps and rawr. I also have to limit the gear based on not doing any raids.
As far as dailies go I have dropped the fishing and cooking dailies to cut my daily time consumption down. So, I am left with tournament and venom hide dailies. I am still only champion for 2 cities so I am stuck doing the dailies to get those valiant seals and the starter champion seal dallies. Venom hide dallies are still boring after you do each one once. I still have over two weeks until I am get the new mount and 12 days until I get the Crusader title.
I have gotten in some heroics which showed me that I need to work on my gear since I was out DPS'd on a couple PUG's by both the other DPS. I did get Legplates of Relentless Onslaught from H ToC 5-man. Very nice upgrade over Legplates of Bloody Reprisal
With 3.2 out now I realize I have to evaluate my gear to see what I can improve on without counting on any raids. That means maybe one or two drops from regular ToC 5-man, H-ToC 5-man and badge gear. Luckily both my gear BiS sources allow for filtering based off source. Unfortunately neither of their filters work great. So, I am currently compiling a list of BiS for a retribution paladin without going into a raid. Then I will figure out the change in DPS for each piece to figure out what to buy first. Of course this is all while trying to do H-ToC 5-man as often as possible and adding the daily heroic in when possible and then adding as many other heroics on top of that whenever I can.
Now in other news I am trying out the new Champions Online game here and there. I think that as far as character customization goes the game is incredible. I took way to long in designing my toon. When I got in the game it seemed fairly straight forward for someone who has played MMO's. The interface seems fairly simple. As far as combat goes I am not sure as I only got through the first dozen or so quests. I only have three abilities: block, short range attack and long range attack. I hope that more depth comes into play as I progress. My main concern for this game has to do with the payment model. They are going for a subscription AND micro transaction model. From everything I have heard they are sticking with the 15 USD and adding MT's. I don't see this game as being worth more than any other game to start with. I personally think that the game will have problems picking up people when they want more money than games that have years of development behind them. Well, that is enough non WoW related news.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Personal patch results
After trying out the new battleground, five-man and some dailies (including the new mount quest-line) I am kind of underwhelmed.
It does seem like the DPS drop wasn't as bad as I had feared. This is probably due to the last minute change to the SoCor to make the damage actually ramp. Though I did notice an overall DPS drop in all fights but extended boss fights. The PvP burst loss does hurt though I still can handle most people.
The new five-man has some interesting mechanics in it though I think a little more time could have been spent on the scenery. It is only one room. It was cool the first time I went in and the announcer guy called out my name and went through his little speech. But, the third time and beyond I was just wishing he would skip it. The drops are good but, overall most of the dungeons in Northrend, outlands and even the old world had more thought put into them.
I will say the new battleground is pretty fun to play. The new idea of launching or dropping into the enemy keep is pretty neat. The different capture points for different vehicles and resources are interesting. I should probably read about the idea behind the battleground to get a better idea of what is going on though.
I am currently champion for 2 cities (Org and Silvermoon) and working on UC. The dailies are starting to wear on me though so I am not sure if I will get the crusader title. I have the ambassador title already so all I need is the valiant seals and the argent crusade rep. I wish there was some other way to build up those things. We will see if I make it the 14 more days it is going to take.
I am currently two days into the path for getting the venomhide mount. That is annoying to have to go back to ungoro, silithis or tanaris to quest those. I found a short cut in sholozar basin in that waygate thing. I just go through that jump down the mountain and ride over to the flight point or southern ungoro to do the daily. Not sure if that waygate thing works for everyone or not. But, it is worth a try to save the run from CoT (the first short cut I tried) to, at the closest, western tanaris but possibly farther.
In case anyone is wondering I have not set foot in a raid since my return to the game. My guild went once or twice but I didn't have the block of time to commit to a raid. Maybe someday. Until then I will just continue heroics and dailies.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Patch Day Yay
Not much going on with me. Real life has me busy so, I haven't gotten much time in game. What I have been doing is some Wintergrasp, BG's and the occasional heroic. One of the things I have found is that while Ret Pally burst is significant there are definitely classes out there with more. I was running around with a warlock friend and saw some impressive burst coming from his destruction spec. 80 elites dying before I could get to them to hit them once. Some PvP battles where I target someone and as I close the gap I see one-half to three-quarters of their life go away. I am not saying that warlocks should have less DPS then paladins but, that was fairly impressive. My gear is Naxx-10 purples and his is mostly blues a couple greens and a purple or two.
My thoughts on the retribution changes are not good. I personally think that it is a significant nerf. Yeah if you do the numbers it looks like a minor bump to over all DPS but that is only if you look at the math without actually paying attention to how we do our DPS. If all I did was CS until the mob was dead then yes my DPS would go up. If I actually hit every mob 6 or more times with a white damage swing my DPS would go up. But guess what. That's not how I fight. In PvE I use rotations based on the situation (none of which involve using just CS and white damage for 20+ seconds.) In PvP I pretty much use the top three damage dealers since mobility makes it fairly hard to maintain a long rotation. Actually calling it a rotation is misleading. Retribution paladins use a FCFS with different attacks having different priorities. JoW, CS, DS, Cons, Exor and HoW are the main attacks. All of these have cooldowns that prevent spamming the one that does the most damage. So I pick whichever attack is off cooldown that is the higher priority.
Ok where I see the biggest problem is in PvP. Right now I can unload on someone and if they are a scrub they die in the initial unload. If they are decently geared they can fight me. Chances are if they are any good and have decent gear they will stop me sometime in the initial unload and root/cc me or engage me in melee. Then because my sustained DPS isn't nearly what I unloaded with and I have no gap closer I need that heavy hitting CS to do anything near the damage I need to in order to compete. Now they lower the damage of CS and drop the cooldown. How does that help me at all in PvP? It doesn't. It hurts.
Now for PvE well, CS has a lower CD with a lower damage %. The net change would be positive. But, wait we have to figure out how to fit that into our rotation/FCFS priority. Cooldown clashes are going to be a big problem.
In PvE I will miss the SoB and its judgments a lot. I will have to play around with SoCrap and SoComplete crap to see which sucks less for my DPS. I foresee everyone toping me on the DPS meter now. I will also more than likely have to respec in order to get something worthwhile out of SoCrap. (side note: 5 stacks really!?!)
In PvP I will miss CS having good damage. I will also miss a judgement that does good damage. Now I get to run around and chase classes with countless gap openers (snares or teleports) or stand toe to with others in plate with my now almost completely melee arsenal being mitigated by his armor. This will be fun.
Oh yeah, I also really like the fact that since blizzard can't manage to balance 2v2 they make it pointless to play. I really think the developers need to come back from the unnamed new blizzard game and work on the one that we are still paying for.
Well, they did make a new BG with little lore and no faction. I guess making up a new faction is too hard for them. Great I get to go get owned in a new place like I did when I was in quest greens fighting in AV for the first time.
While I understand that at times a class needs to be nerfed due to being too powerful. I really don't see that rets were that overpowered. Not enough so to totally kill our burst and give us little to no additional sustained DPS. I have read MANY posts on the results from PTR and the sustained DPS on a target dummy went up marginally while burst went down tremendously. I thought rets carried large slow two-handers for a reason.
I guess blizzard wants us to reroll. Screw them, the only class they made that I like is the retribution paladin. It is the only class that can be self sufficient other than the druid. I don't like cows (except to eat) or playing alliance (except to beat on). I guess I will just suffer through the craptastic DPS and wait for someone at blizzard to actually play a ret.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Achievements
I have been somewhat of an achievement junkie this last week. At the beginning of the week I decided I wasn't going to wait any longer and went to Ice Crown and got my last 3 quests for Ice Crown: The Final Goal by soloing some more 5 man quests. These were the ones were some ghost chick hovers above an arena floor and you take the quests and she flies up and you kill a bunch of baddies, turn in, pick up another quest and so on. This in turn gave me Loremaster of Northrend.
This weekend I decided to work on some old world rep by doing the starter quests in Trisifal Glades which got me to exalted with Undercity and as a side benefit got me the explore Trisifal Glades Achievement. Now, I know I could get me rep by just doing the Argent tournament dailies. Meaning NOW I know I didn't when I started.
One of my guildies made level 80 on one of his alts this weekend so he wanted to do some heroics I was able to influence the choice of Heroics and after a couple of hours Halls of Lightning, Oculus and Old Kingdom are scratched off the list and bam I have the Heroic Dungeonmaster achievement completed. Along with that we got the Lightning Struck and the Timely Death achievements done. Meanwhile I got exalted with Kirin Tor for that achievement.
I started working on the Argent Tournament thing and got Argent Valor last night along with learning that now when I do the dailies I will be getting Horde city rep (small amounts right now since I had to start with Silvermoon who I am already exalted with)
I was doing my cooking and fishing dailies everyday so, I got the 500 fish achievement. With the Emblems I got from the heroics we were doing I got the Libram of SoC which gave me the superior achievement.
All in all I got 14 achievements in 7 days. We'll see if I can get anything like that this week.
If someone is hitting people with a big hammer it is always better to be the one who is swinging the hammer.
Friday, July 10, 2009
Back
Apparently I can't stay away from the game. I have returned to WOW after a few months. I will probably not post too often this time around. Especially since I will probably be posting from my blackberry now.
After reloading and setting up my ui I logged on and ran a couple instances with my old guild. Even with my lack of practice I still managed to lay the hurt on some mobs. Along with gathering up a good amount of aggro. I downloaded the new rawr program and found that without going to 25 man naxx or ulduar Saraphina won't be getting any better gear yet.
A couple of my guildies invite me into their 3v3 team. I got to do 5 matches and walked away with 5 wins and no deaths. In fact none of us died in the 5 fights I was in.
Well, that's all for now.
Remember to always keep the pointy end away from you!
After reloading and setting up my ui I logged on and ran a couple instances with my old guild. Even with my lack of practice I still managed to lay the hurt on some mobs. Along with gathering up a good amount of aggro. I downloaded the new rawr program and found that without going to 25 man naxx or ulduar Saraphina won't be getting any better gear yet.
A couple of my guildies invite me into their 3v3 team. I got to do 5 matches and walked away with 5 wins and no deaths. In fact none of us died in the 5 fights I was in.
Well, that's all for now.
Remember to always keep the pointy end away from you!
Monday, March 23, 2009
The End
The End
When I started playing WoW two and a half years ago I never thought I would be playing this long. Historically I played a game for a few months and then quit. One of the reasons I keep playing the game is because of the helpful nature of a lot of my fellow players. The relatively open nature of the game was another one. When people say why should (insert add-on developer name here) make any money off their idea or their hard work it makes me sick. When blizzard says that people can’t even ask for a donation in game it pisses me off. Whether I pay a developer for something that make my enjoyment of the game go up is my decision. This game was developed by a group that had a good idea and put time into developing it. The scale may be different but it is the same idea. Innovation and hard work should ALWAYS be rewarded. The free loaders that say an add-on should always be free should take a look at the world. This has nothing to do with blizzard trying to make the game better or trying to protect its user base. It is all about them trying to make more money. I understand they are a business and that is what they do but, to strong arm the little guys does is just evil. Anyone who has written code in almost any form knows that writing it is not just picking up a microphone and telling the computer to route me a path that efficiently accomplishes 25 tasks with 3 or more steps each in the proper order. Nor is it clicking five times on your screen to add another pane to your character frame that has all available equipment grouped into meaningful sets. I have written code it does not work like that. A company that has a history of absorbing the work of dozens of authors without even acknowledging them should start with an “M”. Some add-ons are simple others are complex which is actually irrelevant to their value. Their value is solely defined by what can be obtained by someone for giving it to another. I value my time. I am sure that most people value their own time. If this program saves you 1 minute of time every time you use it does the person who wrote it not deserve anything? What if it saves you an hour every day? I think those people who say that it is blizzard’s game and they deserve every dime that is made from are just plain silly. 26 months x $15 = $390 + $20 for the original game + $20 for BC + $70 for WotLK CE = $500. I am one of 11 million users plus. If I am average then that means they have made $5.5 billion. Wait they didn’t write lua or C+. They didn’t invent dwarves or elves or mages or warriors. They didn’t create an operating system or invent microprocessors. Should they receive money for what they have done? Yes they should, they innovated. They put together a group of things in a way that no one else did or no one else marketed the way they did. But, if they are so greedy as to say some other developer can not innovate in a way that involves their program then I am done with them. They have gotten their last dollar from me. I like their game but, I refuse to let them have anymore of my money.
When I started playing WoW two and a half years ago I never thought I would be playing this long. Historically I played a game for a few months and then quit. One of the reasons I keep playing the game is because of the helpful nature of a lot of my fellow players. The relatively open nature of the game was another one. When people say why should (insert add-on developer name here) make any money off their idea or their hard work it makes me sick. When blizzard says that people can’t even ask for a donation in game it pisses me off. Whether I pay a developer for something that make my enjoyment of the game go up is my decision. This game was developed by a group that had a good idea and put time into developing it. The scale may be different but it is the same idea. Innovation and hard work should ALWAYS be rewarded. The free loaders that say an add-on should always be free should take a look at the world. This has nothing to do with blizzard trying to make the game better or trying to protect its user base. It is all about them trying to make more money. I understand they are a business and that is what they do but, to strong arm the little guys does is just evil. Anyone who has written code in almost any form knows that writing it is not just picking up a microphone and telling the computer to route me a path that efficiently accomplishes 25 tasks with 3 or more steps each in the proper order. Nor is it clicking five times on your screen to add another pane to your character frame that has all available equipment grouped into meaningful sets. I have written code it does not work like that. A company that has a history of absorbing the work of dozens of authors without even acknowledging them should start with an “M”. Some add-ons are simple others are complex which is actually irrelevant to their value. Their value is solely defined by what can be obtained by someone for giving it to another. I value my time. I am sure that most people value their own time. If this program saves you 1 minute of time every time you use it does the person who wrote it not deserve anything? What if it saves you an hour every day? I think those people who say that it is blizzard’s game and they deserve every dime that is made from are just plain silly. 26 months x $15 = $390 + $20 for the original game + $20 for BC + $70 for WotLK CE = $500. I am one of 11 million users plus. If I am average then that means they have made $5.5 billion. Wait they didn’t write lua or C+. They didn’t invent dwarves or elves or mages or warriors. They didn’t create an operating system or invent microprocessors. Should they receive money for what they have done? Yes they should, they innovated. They put together a group of things in a way that no one else did or no one else marketed the way they did. But, if they are so greedy as to say some other developer can not innovate in a way that involves their program then I am done with them. They have gotten their last dollar from me. I like their game but, I refuse to let them have anymore of my money.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Raid Loot Policy
I heard general grumblings about the clarity of my previous loot policy so I changed it up a little bit though kept the same general idea.
Rank 1
Tanking Gear
Healing Gear
Rank 2
DPS Gear
Rank 3
Off Set Gear
Tanking gear is defined as anything with a defensive stat (Defense, Dodge, Parry or Block)
Healing gear is defined as anything with spell power and no hit
If the piece is not an improvement you are automatically dropped to Rank 3
Point System
The basis of the point system is that for progression we need to gear our tanks and healers first but not ignore others. Also, you will notice that there is no mention of how much of an improvement a piece is. This is to not penalize people who spend the time an effort to gear their characters outside of raids. The raid we are trying to progress in is not the place to gear up for the raid we are trying to progress in. It is not a DKP system. Your main spec is defined as out of the last 10 raid bosses you have downed you have been on this character in this spec more than half the time. In order to not penalize those who help the group by healing or tanking your main DPS spec ignores bosses you have tanked or healed.
Tank Gear Points
You are capable of tanking (+1)
You are spec’d to tank (+1)
You are currently tanking (+1)
This is your main spec (+1)
You have received a piece of gear this raid ID (-1 each)
Healing Gear Points
You are capable of healing (+1)
You are spec’d to heal (+1)
You are currently healing (+1)
This is your main spec (+1)
You have received a piece of gear this raid ID (-1 each)
DPS Gear Points
You are spec’d to use this piece (+1)
This is your main spec (+1)
You have not received a piece this raid ID (+1)
You have received a piece of gear this raid ID (-1 each)
Basics
First determine which Rank the gear is: Tanking, Healing or DPS.
Second determine who gets to roll on a piece using the appropriate point system: TGP, HGP or DGP. The people with the most points get to roll on the piece. If one person has more points than anyone else they get the piece.
Off-set or off-spec
If you decide to gear up for an off-set or off-spec the first piece you decide on rolling for follows the above rules but every off-set or off-spec piece you win after that costs you one shard or half the going price on the AH for a shard. This situation is defined as a piece that falls into rank 3 or is not your main spec or is not your current spec. If the piece is an improvement to your current or main spec this rule does not apply.
Rank 1
Tanking Gear
Healing Gear
Rank 2
DPS Gear
Rank 3
Off Set Gear
Tanking gear is defined as anything with a defensive stat (Defense, Dodge, Parry or Block)
Healing gear is defined as anything with spell power and no hit
If the piece is not an improvement you are automatically dropped to Rank 3
Point System
The basis of the point system is that for progression we need to gear our tanks and healers first but not ignore others. Also, you will notice that there is no mention of how much of an improvement a piece is. This is to not penalize people who spend the time an effort to gear their characters outside of raids. The raid we are trying to progress in is not the place to gear up for the raid we are trying to progress in. It is not a DKP system. Your main spec is defined as out of the last 10 raid bosses you have downed you have been on this character in this spec more than half the time. In order to not penalize those who help the group by healing or tanking your main DPS spec ignores bosses you have tanked or healed.
Tank Gear Points
You are capable of tanking (+1)
You are spec’d to tank (+1)
You are currently tanking (+1)
This is your main spec (+1)
You have received a piece of gear this raid ID (-1 each)
Healing Gear Points
You are capable of healing (+1)
You are spec’d to heal (+1)
You are currently healing (+1)
This is your main spec (+1)
You have received a piece of gear this raid ID (-1 each)
DPS Gear Points
You are spec’d to use this piece (+1)
This is your main spec (+1)
You have not received a piece this raid ID (+1)
You have received a piece of gear this raid ID (-1 each)
Basics
First determine which Rank the gear is: Tanking, Healing or DPS.
Second determine who gets to roll on a piece using the appropriate point system: TGP, HGP or DGP. The people with the most points get to roll on the piece. If one person has more points than anyone else they get the piece.
Off-set or off-spec
If you decide to gear up for an off-set or off-spec the first piece you decide on rolling for follows the above rules but every off-set or off-spec piece you win after that costs you one shard or half the going price on the AH for a shard. This situation is defined as a piece that falls into rank 3 or is not your main spec or is not your current spec. If the piece is an improvement to your current or main spec this rule does not apply.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Raid Night
Naxx-
I logged online last night at around 5 minutes before the scheduled raid start time only to find that it got pushed back a half hour again. See, I am not the only one that is late. So I figured I would fly down to dragonblight and fish for a bit for some strength fish. I got a bunch of them and I asked one of my guildies if he had any flasks or elixirs. He made me a couple and I met him in agmar’s hammer to get them. After trading a bunch of things with him I started flying towards naxx to get ready for the run. My computer decided this was a good time to reboot. After manually rebooting (the button) and then ctrl-alt-del rebooting I finally got back in game and we started the military wing. We wiped once on instructor and then downed him with no drops for me. During this fight our freshly minted holy paladin (he healed our guild all through BC but decided to take a break from the paladin for awhile) told me he put beacon of light on me and left it there during most of the way to the boss. I guess seal and judgment of blood do a bunch of damage. It probably doesn’t help that I pulled aggro a couple times. Anyway, we make our way to harvester which is one we haven’t beat yet. After some discussion I go over to the undead side ( I had to remind the RL I do a crap ton more damage to undead) and we one shot the fight. It was pretty nice but, alas no drops for the retribution paladin. The new holy paladin did get a piece as did the shaman healer. We then went towards the four horsemen and made it there with a couple of scares from accidental pulls but no wipes. We tried to do the horsemen but, after two attempts neither one of which lasting more than a minute, we decided to try with another healer later.
Arch-
We decided to try the vault as a guild but it was close to time for wintergrasp fighting to start. While inside the vault the fight started and we ended up doing that as a guild.
Wintergrasp-
We had a pretty good time doing the wintergrasp fighting. We invited some others that were there into our raid. We ended up successfully defending the keep from the allies. I got some of the quests done and went to fight some more allies to finish the kill x allies quest. I think there were multiple raids going on but, we still won so it was all good. I ended up getting like 5k honor which is cool.
I logged online last night at around 5 minutes before the scheduled raid start time only to find that it got pushed back a half hour again. See, I am not the only one that is late. So I figured I would fly down to dragonblight and fish for a bit for some strength fish. I got a bunch of them and I asked one of my guildies if he had any flasks or elixirs. He made me a couple and I met him in agmar’s hammer to get them. After trading a bunch of things with him I started flying towards naxx to get ready for the run. My computer decided this was a good time to reboot. After manually rebooting (the button) and then ctrl-alt-del rebooting I finally got back in game and we started the military wing. We wiped once on instructor and then downed him with no drops for me. During this fight our freshly minted holy paladin (he healed our guild all through BC but decided to take a break from the paladin for awhile) told me he put beacon of light on me and left it there during most of the way to the boss. I guess seal and judgment of blood do a bunch of damage. It probably doesn’t help that I pulled aggro a couple times. Anyway, we make our way to harvester which is one we haven’t beat yet. After some discussion I go over to the undead side ( I had to remind the RL I do a crap ton more damage to undead) and we one shot the fight. It was pretty nice but, alas no drops for the retribution paladin. The new holy paladin did get a piece as did the shaman healer. We then went towards the four horsemen and made it there with a couple of scares from accidental pulls but no wipes. We tried to do the horsemen but, after two attempts neither one of which lasting more than a minute, we decided to try with another healer later.
Arch-
We decided to try the vault as a guild but it was close to time for wintergrasp fighting to start. While inside the vault the fight started and we ended up doing that as a guild.
Wintergrasp-
We had a pretty good time doing the wintergrasp fighting. We invited some others that were there into our raid. We ended up successfully defending the keep from the allies. I got some of the quests done and went to fight some more allies to finish the kill x allies quest. I think there were multiple raids going on but, we still won so it was all good. I ended up getting like 5k honor which is cool.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Weekend Report
Another weekend gone and what have I gotten done?
Quests-
I am still working on the Icecrown quest achievement. I am at 133/140 now and all the quests I have left are group quests. I got some guildies to help me with a few of them but, several of the ones left now are in phased areas of the map. And one of them requires more than one person in the group to be on the quest.
Reputation-
I got exalted on Knights of the Ebon Blade by running a bunch of heroics and also the quests in Icecrown. I also made it to honored on Sons of Hodir doing the dailies. I am not sure which tabard to wear in instances now since I didn’t see much in the way of reputation gear for the other two factions. I am just wearing the Kirin Tor tabard until I decide since more rep with them lowers repair costs in Dalaran.
Gear-
I got my new bracers enchanted and put some gems in them so I wear them now. Those replace my vengeance bindings bringing my epic count up to eight. Because of my new reputation with the Knights I was able to get some new boots which replace my crafted ones. More than likely I won’t replace my helmet since it is in the top three in the game right now. I finally made a list of heroics to do to replace my blue armor to best pre-naxx in slot. I also helped one of our enchanters to make his runed titanium rod so he could put massacre on my polearm and greater assault on my boots.
PvP-
While doing the daily for the Viking women a rogue and DK tried to kill me. Both of them were level 80 so, I figured I was dead. Well, it turns out that they should have left me to do my daily since they both got to do the flight of shame about 60 seconds after they attacked. Then after they resurrected they ran away. Sometimes people are just amusing. The next day a mage tried the same thing, attack me while I am doing the pit fighting. He ended up fully following their example by making his flight of shame in around 45 seconds. Also last night I did a Wintergrasp defense, unsuccessfully I might add, and got like 3000 honor. That puts me around 19k honor. Maybe I will buy something soon.
Heroics-
We ran a few heroics (HoL, UP and UK) and I have to say I have not successfully killed Loken on heroic yet. It is really annoying that we can’t get that one done. We tried the stand and fight method and the healer died every time. We tried the up and down path and we could only do like 4 times up and down before we screwed it up. We tried the right left method and didn’t even make it to the right before we died. I don’t know what to do. I need to finish that one but, I hate dropping 75-100 gold on attempts. That’s more then I usually spend on repairs for a raid night.
Alts-
I ran my lock a little bit to try and get him up in level and work a little on his tailoring. I really want to get his tailoring up so I can make bigger bags for my main. I just can’t get enough interest in him to level him up.
Quests-
I am still working on the Icecrown quest achievement. I am at 133/140 now and all the quests I have left are group quests. I got some guildies to help me with a few of them but, several of the ones left now are in phased areas of the map. And one of them requires more than one person in the group to be on the quest.
Reputation-
I got exalted on Knights of the Ebon Blade by running a bunch of heroics and also the quests in Icecrown. I also made it to honored on Sons of Hodir doing the dailies. I am not sure which tabard to wear in instances now since I didn’t see much in the way of reputation gear for the other two factions. I am just wearing the Kirin Tor tabard until I decide since more rep with them lowers repair costs in Dalaran.
Gear-
I got my new bracers enchanted and put some gems in them so I wear them now. Those replace my vengeance bindings bringing my epic count up to eight. Because of my new reputation with the Knights I was able to get some new boots which replace my crafted ones. More than likely I won’t replace my helmet since it is in the top three in the game right now. I finally made a list of heroics to do to replace my blue armor to best pre-naxx in slot. I also helped one of our enchanters to make his runed titanium rod so he could put massacre on my polearm and greater assault on my boots.
PvP-
While doing the daily for the Viking women a rogue and DK tried to kill me. Both of them were level 80 so, I figured I was dead. Well, it turns out that they should have left me to do my daily since they both got to do the flight of shame about 60 seconds after they attacked. Then after they resurrected they ran away. Sometimes people are just amusing. The next day a mage tried the same thing, attack me while I am doing the pit fighting. He ended up fully following their example by making his flight of shame in around 45 seconds. Also last night I did a Wintergrasp defense, unsuccessfully I might add, and got like 3000 honor. That puts me around 19k honor. Maybe I will buy something soon.
Heroics-
We ran a few heroics (HoL, UP and UK) and I have to say I have not successfully killed Loken on heroic yet. It is really annoying that we can’t get that one done. We tried the stand and fight method and the healer died every time. We tried the up and down path and we could only do like 4 times up and down before we screwed it up. We tried the right left method and didn’t even make it to the right before we died. I don’t know what to do. I need to finish that one but, I hate dropping 75-100 gold on attempts. That’s more then I usually spend on repairs for a raid night.
Alts-
I ran my lock a little bit to try and get him up in level and work a little on his tailoring. I really want to get his tailoring up so I can make bigger bags for my main. I just can’t get enough interest in him to level him up.
Friday, February 6, 2009
Spell Rotations
Since paladins are a first come first served rotation DPS class, I have a priority of casting as I am sure most of us do. With global cooldowns at 1.5 seconds it is very important to cast the best spell you can cast as soon as you can cast it. Basically I start at the top and cast the first spell that is off c/d and meets the special requirement in parentheses. to arrive at these rotations i did a lot of reading and practicing. There are different circumstances which vary what I do but here are the basics.
Elite pulls-
Divine Plea (mana is less that 90% and not wearing my wings)
Avenging Wrath (tank has agro locked in and mob will be there for 10 seconds)
Trinket (tank has agro locked in and mob will be there for 10 seconds)
Judgment of Wisdom
Hammer of Wrath (mob is 20% or less)
Holy Wrath (there are undead or demons around me)
Exorcism (target is undead or demon)
Crusader Strike
Divine Storm
Consecrate
Non-elite AoE pulls (instance)-
Divine Plea (mana is less that 90% and not wearing my wings)
Holy Wrath (there are undead or demons around me)
Divine Storm
Consecrate
Judgment of Wisdom
Crusader Strike
Exorcism (target is undead or demon)
Hammer of Wrath (mob is 20% or less)
Solo small group pulls-
Divine Plea (mana is less that 90% and not wearing my wings)
Judgment of Wisdom
Holy Wrath (there are undead or demons around me)
Divine Storm
Crusader Strike
Exorcism (target is undead or demon)
Consecrate
Hammer of Wrath (mob is 20% or less)
Solo large group pulls-
Divine Plea (mana is less that 90% and not wearing my wings)
Holy Wrath (there are undead or demons around me)
Consecrate
Divine Storm
Judgment of Wisdom
Crusader Strike
Exorcism (target is undead or demon)
Hammer of Wrath (mob is 20% or less)
Single non-elite (not prefered)-
Judgment of Wisdom
Divine Storm
Crusader Strike
they should be dead
Elite pulls-
Divine Plea (mana is less that 90% and not wearing my wings)
Avenging Wrath (tank has agro locked in and mob will be there for 10 seconds)
Trinket (tank has agro locked in and mob will be there for 10 seconds)
Judgment of Wisdom
Hammer of Wrath (mob is 20% or less)
Holy Wrath (there are undead or demons around me)
Exorcism (target is undead or demon)
Crusader Strike
Divine Storm
Consecrate
Non-elite AoE pulls (instance)-
Divine Plea (mana is less that 90% and not wearing my wings)
Holy Wrath (there are undead or demons around me)
Divine Storm
Consecrate
Judgment of Wisdom
Crusader Strike
Exorcism (target is undead or demon)
Hammer of Wrath (mob is 20% or less)
Solo small group pulls-
Divine Plea (mana is less that 90% and not wearing my wings)
Judgment of Wisdom
Holy Wrath (there are undead or demons around me)
Divine Storm
Crusader Strike
Exorcism (target is undead or demon)
Consecrate
Hammer of Wrath (mob is 20% or less)
Solo large group pulls-
Divine Plea (mana is less that 90% and not wearing my wings)
Holy Wrath (there are undead or demons around me)
Consecrate
Divine Storm
Judgment of Wisdom
Crusader Strike
Exorcism (target is undead or demon)
Hammer of Wrath (mob is 20% or less)
Single non-elite (not prefered)-
Judgment of Wisdom
Divine Storm
Crusader Strike
they should be dead
Naxx-10 and Sarth-10
Naxx-10
Last night we farmed the four bosses we have on farm in Naxx. We closed the arachnid wing which gave me some new bracers which are a slight improvement on my vengeance bindings. For some reason we had a little trouble with Grand Widow last night. We actually wiped two or three times before finishing her. One thing I learned was I am not the worst one for starting early on a mob or boss. When we downed patchwerk I got the healing plate to use for my holy set. Even with the changed glyphs from last week I am still running into mana issues with patchwerk. When he got down to around 40% or so I had to pop a mana pot. Not sure if I am doing something wrong here or not. One of the contributing factors in this is that I am not being healed so no mana from SA. I do the same rotation as I have read in most places: JoW, Exorcism, CS, DS, Consecrate, DP and pop wings and trinket. I repeat these as often as their cooldowns allow using pretty much that as the priority.
Sarth-10
Since we got a late start last night due to one of the tanks showing up late, we left Naxx and went to Sarth for some badges and loot. I actually made it on time last night in fact I was 30 minutes early. The 22-slot bag dropped along with the bag of loot. Some other stuff dropped but, not for me. I lost the roll on both of the bags. I just took my badges and signed off.
Net result-
I ended up with some healing gear and eight badges for the night. Not bad for 25 or so gold in repairs. Hopefully I can get a couple heroics in so I can move closer to some more badge gear.
Things I have observed-
One bad thing about being a retribution paladin in a raid is that I don’t get to see very much. I pretty much have to watch my cooldowns fairly close so I don’t miss one. Death Knights can put out some serious DPS. The more the tank moves around with the mob I am trying kill the lower my DPS goes. I can really pump out some serious DPS when I am standing still. Trying to maintain a full set for all four of the roles I want to takes up a ton of bag space. No one, including me, likes to be told to change the way they play their characters.
Last night we farmed the four bosses we have on farm in Naxx. We closed the arachnid wing which gave me some new bracers which are a slight improvement on my vengeance bindings. For some reason we had a little trouble with Grand Widow last night. We actually wiped two or three times before finishing her. One thing I learned was I am not the worst one for starting early on a mob or boss. When we downed patchwerk I got the healing plate to use for my holy set. Even with the changed glyphs from last week I am still running into mana issues with patchwerk. When he got down to around 40% or so I had to pop a mana pot. Not sure if I am doing something wrong here or not. One of the contributing factors in this is that I am not being healed so no mana from SA. I do the same rotation as I have read in most places: JoW, Exorcism, CS, DS, Consecrate, DP and pop wings and trinket. I repeat these as often as their cooldowns allow using pretty much that as the priority.
Sarth-10
Since we got a late start last night due to one of the tanks showing up late, we left Naxx and went to Sarth for some badges and loot. I actually made it on time last night in fact I was 30 minutes early. The 22-slot bag dropped along with the bag of loot. Some other stuff dropped but, not for me. I lost the roll on both of the bags. I just took my badges and signed off.
Net result-
I ended up with some healing gear and eight badges for the night. Not bad for 25 or so gold in repairs. Hopefully I can get a couple heroics in so I can move closer to some more badge gear.
Things I have observed-
One bad thing about being a retribution paladin in a raid is that I don’t get to see very much. I pretty much have to watch my cooldowns fairly close so I don’t miss one. Death Knights can put out some serious DPS. The more the tank moves around with the mob I am trying kill the lower my DPS goes. I can really pump out some serious DPS when I am standing still. Trying to maintain a full set for all four of the roles I want to takes up a ton of bag space. No one, including me, likes to be told to change the way they play their characters.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
First visit to VoA
I finished changing out my gems for all blue level gems on Tuesday just in time for one of my guildies to ask in guild chat if anyone wanted to tank or DPS heroic VoA. I volunteered to DPS and about 15 seconds later I got an invite. Now let me say this, I have never done a VoA (10 or 25) nor successfully done any 25-man raid. So, I accept a summons because for some reason I haven’t seen the portal from Dalaran appear when we have Wintergrasp in a long time. I ran into the instance and waited with the group for the rest of the people to show up. While waiting I figured it would be a good idea to read the strategy for the fight. It seemed fairly simple: stay out of the spikes, stay out of the cloud things, once in awhile the boss will grab the MT and the OT needs to pick him up and he will random charge someone occasionally. We wiped several times which surprised most of the people in there because apparently it is the easiest raid boss in the game. I was worried I wasn’t doing my part but, with full raid buffs I ended up hitting around 2.3 kDPS. This ranked me around #7 on the charts. So, I was doing my part of the DPS. So, I looked at damage and healing taken and mine was a little higher that other DPS types but, with SoB that is to be expected. We tried three times and failed then the RL said he was dumping people who were not performing and I figured I would be gone but, nope we got some more people in and wiped once and then got it done. I got some gold and a couple emblems. One thing I didn’t like was a ton of lag as soon as spells started flying. Not sure if I should or even can do anything about that.
After returning to Dalaran I bought my badge belt. I put a buckle on it and added a gem to that. I am considering changing out my gloves but I have replaced a lot of my hit with crit rating and am fairly close to the hit cap so I am not sure.
One of our main healers was on so, I was hoping to get a heroic in but, he wanted to work on his holy paladin to better heal raids. We ended up going to HoS and walking through that easy. After that I signed off for the night.
After returning to Dalaran I bought my badge belt. I put a buckle on it and added a gem to that. I am considering changing out my gloves but I have replaced a lot of my hit with crit rating and am fairly close to the hit cap so I am not sure.
One of our main healers was on so, I was hoping to get a heroic in but, he wanted to work on his holy paladin to better heal raids. We ended up going to HoS and walking through that easy. After that I signed off for the night.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Weekend questing and Naxx-10 raid
Weekend Questing-
I decided to try to finish off the quest achievements in Northrend this past weekend. I got Stormpeaks done and the other zones were already done and got a good chunk of Icecrown done. I only have around 20 or so left to get that achievement done. Unfortunately I may run into issues without a group as it appears that a lot of the quest chains require a group. During the process of doing these quests I made around 2000 gold so I am doing ok on money again.
Monday Raid-
We went back to Naxx-10 again and gave Instructor another shot. This time we did it no problem. Our GL/RL thinks that when we tried it last Thursday it was bugged since he didn’t have any problem using the controlling crystals this time. We got him down in one shot this time. Nothing dropped for me this time. Next we tried Gothik the Harvester. After about 5 failed attempts we called it and went and gave Sartharion a try. Cleared the adds and engaged the boss. We died the first time but, on the second try we succeeded. The drops were a 22 slot bag, a bag of emblems, tier 7 shaman chest, and a spirit trinket. I rolled on the bags but, lost both. After that we called it a night.
Observations
One thing of note was that before the raid I went ahead and changed my glyphs to the ones recommended in most places I have looked. I also changed out a couple gems to blue level ones. During some of the trash pulls around sarth I noticed my DPS meter going up to 3500. I have not seen anything that high except in those gimmick fights where some mob or another gives you crazy buffs. I definitely like that number. I think I will go give some GC some gold and finish out putting the blue gems in my slots. I think I will also get the T-7 gloves for emblems and enchant and gem that up. Hopefully I can pull off some more numbers like that.
I decided to try to finish off the quest achievements in Northrend this past weekend. I got Stormpeaks done and the other zones were already done and got a good chunk of Icecrown done. I only have around 20 or so left to get that achievement done. Unfortunately I may run into issues without a group as it appears that a lot of the quest chains require a group. During the process of doing these quests I made around 2000 gold so I am doing ok on money again.
Monday Raid-
We went back to Naxx-10 again and gave Instructor another shot. This time we did it no problem. Our GL/RL thinks that when we tried it last Thursday it was bugged since he didn’t have any problem using the controlling crystals this time. We got him down in one shot this time. Nothing dropped for me this time. Next we tried Gothik the Harvester. After about 5 failed attempts we called it and went and gave Sartharion a try. Cleared the adds and engaged the boss. We died the first time but, on the second try we succeeded. The drops were a 22 slot bag, a bag of emblems, tier 7 shaman chest, and a spirit trinket. I rolled on the bags but, lost both. After that we called it a night.
Observations
One thing of note was that before the raid I went ahead and changed my glyphs to the ones recommended in most places I have looked. I also changed out a couple gems to blue level ones. During some of the trash pulls around sarth I noticed my DPS meter going up to 3500. I have not seen anything that high except in those gimmick fights where some mob or another gives you crazy buffs. I definitely like that number. I think I will go give some GC some gold and finish out putting the blue gems in my slots. I think I will also get the T-7 gloves for emblems and enchant and gem that up. Hopefully I can pull off some more numbers like that.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Monday raid
I logged on for raid night right about start time again (I really need to do something about that) and I find out that our raid start got pushed back an hour. Apparently one of our tanks had to work late so we had to delay. When I log on the raid leader tells me I need to confirm my raid invite which I didn’t even see. Anyway, I tell him I am here and will go. Since we weren’t starting right away I bounce over to my AH mule and post a few auctions. Then I log over to my enchanter and send a stack of infinite dust and a stack of greater cosmic essences so I can get my polearm from Monday enchanted. Now, I ask one of our guild’s GC’s if he has the Sovereign Twilight Opal. It turns out that this recipe is a world drop as well. I am not happy that both this and the blue level orange gem are both world drops. That is really annoying. So I get the purple rock cut with AP instead. I grab some dragonfin filets and strength elixirs from my bank and head out to naxx.
We finally get started in the arachnid wing and it is a relatively smooth run. I am pretty sure we didn’t have any wipes in that wing. I got the neck from Anub’Rekhan by out rolling a rogue on it. It probably would have been a bigger improvement for him but, I wasn’t feeling generous. We rolled on it and it was in accordance with our stated loot rules. Then Maexxna dropped the polearm again and the DK got it. I was a sport and gave him mats to get it enchanted and he was able to use it right then. We did Patchwerk again and downed him fairly easy. Ok that was not bad. Now, we try a new boss. We go to the military wing and start in instructor raz. No one in the raid has tried this guy before but, the RL had read the strategy and seemed to have an idea of what to do. After many wipes we ended up calling it a night. We had some issues with initial controlling and releasing of the apprentices. And it was getting late so, we just called it. Hopefully we will move further in on Thursday.
I have enough badges for a couple pieces but I am not sure I want to get them as they may not be much of an improvement. Another thing I am not happy with is that there are no useful librams between the venture co one and a couple in naxx-25. That is a pretty big gap in my opinion.
We finally get started in the arachnid wing and it is a relatively smooth run. I am pretty sure we didn’t have any wipes in that wing. I got the neck from Anub’Rekhan by out rolling a rogue on it. It probably would have been a bigger improvement for him but, I wasn’t feeling generous. We rolled on it and it was in accordance with our stated loot rules. Then Maexxna dropped the polearm again and the DK got it. I was a sport and gave him mats to get it enchanted and he was able to use it right then. We did Patchwerk again and downed him fairly easy. Ok that was not bad. Now, we try a new boss. We go to the military wing and start in instructor raz. No one in the raid has tried this guy before but, the RL had read the strategy and seemed to have an idea of what to do. After many wipes we ended up calling it a night. We had some issues with initial controlling and releasing of the apprentices. And it was getting late so, we just called it. Hopefully we will move further in on Thursday.
I have enough badges for a couple pieces but I am not sure I want to get them as they may not be much of an improvement. Another thing I am not happy with is that there are no useful librams between the venture co one and a couple in naxx-25. That is a pretty big gap in my opinion.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Damage meters
OK, quick post on my opinion of DPS numbers and the importance of these numbers. While the fact that these numbers are relative to specific fights and roles in these fights should be recognized. Also, it should be noted that group composition will have varying effects on the end result of DPS for a given fight. Example: moonkin aura, retribution aura … These numbers do have importance in that if the group doesn’t have enough DPS they will not finish a fight. All of the little sayings being passed around are true to some extent. If a healer dies it’s the tank’s fault. If a tank dies it’s the healer’s fault. If a DPS dies it’s the DPS’s fault. The exceptions are important as well. If melee DPS dies on a boss that does AoE or in a fight where the boss will strike the person in melee with the most HP whose fault is it? If the tank dies because the healer ran out of mana whose fault is it?
While healers and tanks don’t like seeing the damage meters being flashed up, since they are not high on them, the numbers are still important to let people know where they stand in comparison to the rest of the raid/party. Attention should be paid on whether the DPS in question has other duties assigned (sheep, trap or banish to name a few.) But, the blanket DPS numbers are not important comments or the sarcastic “oh that’s important” remarks are just as unproductive as rubbing people’s noses in their lower DPS numbers
While healers and tanks don’t like seeing the damage meters being flashed up, since they are not high on them, the numbers are still important to let people know where they stand in comparison to the rest of the raid/party. Attention should be paid on whether the DPS in question has other duties assigned (sheep, trap or banish to name a few.) But, the blanket DPS numbers are not important comments or the sarcastic “oh that’s important” remarks are just as unproductive as rubbing people’s noses in their lower DPS numbers
Monday raid night
Monday night is raid night in my guild so, last night we went to naxx-10.
Anub’Rekhan-
This boss has turned fairly easy since we figured out that the tank needs to tank him outside of the ooze stuff. The fight went well. We didn’t lose anyone. The DPS plate dropped but I lost the roll to our DK.
Grand Widow Faerlina-
It only took one shot on this boss as well. I didn’t get any drops from this one. This is an interesting boss. I am glad that someone figured out that to beat her you need to kill one of her minions every time she enrages. On the first enrage timer I had to go help the OT DPS the first sacrifice but, after that one the OT had to turn his back on the others for most of the fight or risk killing them to early.
Maexxna-
We ended up wiping a couple of times on this one. One problem in being the highest DPS in the raid is that when the tank dies you follow him to the grave pretty quickly. Our OT was able to pick him/her up fairly fast but, not fast enough for me to live. After two wipes we were able to time the web wraps enough so that the tank didn’t die and next thing you know we have the spider wing done. Then I had to argue with myself for awhile on whether I wanted the polearm or not but, in the end decided to take it and play around with it to see if I could get more DPS out of it. Since I am hit capped and the purple mace I have has a bunch of hit on it I might be able to get a little more DPS. I don’t like the fact is has no strength on it but I will have to give it a try in the world to see how it works out.
We had to talk for a few minutes on which wing to do next since we weren’t sure if we had the DPS for patchwork yet but, after one of the healers dropped to run his hunter we figured to give it a try.
Patchwork-
First try we had everyone jump in the slime except the main tank. The problem with that is when you do that your mana drops as well. Since we weren’t sure about this strategy one of the healers jumped in as well. I ran out of mana. The healer ran out of mana. Then we all ran out of life. The next try I didn’t jump in and the healer didn’t jump in since I would not my own life down with SoB and if he hit me once with the strike thing it would be ok as I could live through one of them and that would make me not get another one. We died one more time and then we were able to kill him. I can’t remember the drops unfortunately. Except that our priest healer got some boots.
We then tried Grobulus but only got two tries before the priest and both called it. Maybe we will actually get our Thursday run in and advance a little bit more this week.
Anub’Rekhan-
This boss has turned fairly easy since we figured out that the tank needs to tank him outside of the ooze stuff. The fight went well. We didn’t lose anyone. The DPS plate dropped but I lost the roll to our DK.
Grand Widow Faerlina-
It only took one shot on this boss as well. I didn’t get any drops from this one. This is an interesting boss. I am glad that someone figured out that to beat her you need to kill one of her minions every time she enrages. On the first enrage timer I had to go help the OT DPS the first sacrifice but, after that one the OT had to turn his back on the others for most of the fight or risk killing them to early.
Maexxna-
We ended up wiping a couple of times on this one. One problem in being the highest DPS in the raid is that when the tank dies you follow him to the grave pretty quickly. Our OT was able to pick him/her up fairly fast but, not fast enough for me to live. After two wipes we were able to time the web wraps enough so that the tank didn’t die and next thing you know we have the spider wing done. Then I had to argue with myself for awhile on whether I wanted the polearm or not but, in the end decided to take it and play around with it to see if I could get more DPS out of it. Since I am hit capped and the purple mace I have has a bunch of hit on it I might be able to get a little more DPS. I don’t like the fact is has no strength on it but I will have to give it a try in the world to see how it works out.
We had to talk for a few minutes on which wing to do next since we weren’t sure if we had the DPS for patchwork yet but, after one of the healers dropped to run his hunter we figured to give it a try.
Patchwork-
First try we had everyone jump in the slime except the main tank. The problem with that is when you do that your mana drops as well. Since we weren’t sure about this strategy one of the healers jumped in as well. I ran out of mana. The healer ran out of mana. Then we all ran out of life. The next try I didn’t jump in and the healer didn’t jump in since I would not my own life down with SoB and if he hit me once with the strike thing it would be ok as I could live through one of them and that would make me not get another one. We died one more time and then we were able to kill him. I can’t remember the drops unfortunately. Except that our priest healer got some boots.
We then tried Grobulus but only got two tries before the priest and both called it. Maybe we will actually get our Thursday run in and advance a little bit more this week.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Weekend report
Another weekend is gone. I decided to do the entire honor your elder quest series and realized that that is a large time investment. I ended up finishing all of them except a few the ones in the Northrend instances. I will try to get those done fairly soon. I wouldn’t mind getting another title besides Jenkins. While doing the quests I ended up getting exalted with org and getting close on UC.
We ran some heroics as a guild but, I didn’t get any gear ups for my main spec. We did AN, Gundrak, Drak’tharon keep.
I have been doing the daily cooking quest everyday and for the last 6 or 7 days it has been the same one. I am about sick of making a plate for the gathering at the legerman.
I really need to figure out a gear upgrade plan for my paladin instead of just saying I need to do it. My plan is to make a list of all my gear. Find what the best gear I can get from a heroic is. Use a formula I got from somewhere to rate the amount of improvement each gives. And finally, rank the gear by amount of improvement. My fear is that there is not going to be that many pieces that give an improvement in heroics.
Right now my plan is:
1) Finish the lunar festival achievement
2) Make a gear plan
3) Work on finishing the quests in Northrend
4) Run heroics to achieve gear plan
We ran some heroics as a guild but, I didn’t get any gear ups for my main spec. We did AN, Gundrak, Drak’tharon keep.
I have been doing the daily cooking quest everyday and for the last 6 or 7 days it has been the same one. I am about sick of making a plate for the gathering at the legerman.
I really need to figure out a gear upgrade plan for my paladin instead of just saying I need to do it. My plan is to make a list of all my gear. Find what the best gear I can get from a heroic is. Use a formula I got from somewhere to rate the amount of improvement each gives. And finally, rank the gear by amount of improvement. My fear is that there is not going to be that many pieces that give an improvement in heroics.
Right now my plan is:
1) Finish the lunar festival achievement
2) Make a gear plan
3) Work on finishing the quests in Northrend
4) Run heroics to achieve gear plan
Friday, January 23, 2009
Three days and one drop
Three days go by and what have I gotten done in WoW? Not much unfortunately. Wednesdays are an off day for me.
Tuesday was patch day and with the disconnect issues going on I spent most of my time on my DK. I realize now that some people have no business trying to PvP. My DK was level 60 at the start of the night and in the starter gear you get for the initial quests. I am running around in hellfire and I end up in a bad pull. I had about 6 mobs on me beating me about the head and shoulders. I do OK and end up killing off three of them when another DK grabs me and commences to attacking me. So, I turn my attention to him and kill him. I look at his level and he is a 62. What?!? OK must be a fluke. I finish off the last three mobs and have to resummon my pet since he did actually kill that. Then I decide to see if I can kill some more mobs and stack up 5 more. Halfway through the same DK attacks again. He ends up with the same fate as last time. This time I did end up turning into a ghoul but did not die until I exploded myself so I could rez into my normal body. The he commences to attack again with no mobs on me. I really don’t get it. He couldn’t kill me while I was fighting a bunch of mobs and now he attacks me at full health and read for him. He died. Again and again. I think KoS said like 10 times I killed him that night before he gave up. I finally continue on and make level 61. Then I am fighting three of those ravager things to get their eggs and a retribution paladin hits me. I figure I am done now he’s level 63. Next thing I know I am standing there with his corpse, and the corpse of 5 ravagers ( got some adds in the running around fighting) and at like ¾ health. He didn’t come back for more. Lesson to be learned if you can’t PvP don’t attack people who are not bothering you.
When the servers finally came back online and stayed working I logged on my pally and did my cooking daily and logged off.
Thursday, our designated raid night came and when raid time came around I was online with 8 others waiting for one of our tanks to come online. Long story short at like 0100 he still had not come on. We ran heroic Gundrak and the purple ring dropped. The funny thing is I replaced the ring I had just gotten from heroic nexus on Monday.
We got into some PvP before the run in the crystallized fire farm in Borean Tundra. Those guys were good. We were not so much. They had titles we do not. You know the titles like Brutal Gladiator and the flawless victor. We finally ran the three of them off when our fifth showed up. We need to work on our coordination a bit on that. Didn’t help they made the sky’s not so safe with one of them being a shaman and the other a priest. The shaman knocks me off my mount and the priest gives him levitate. The hunter was plinking away as I am falling. And then right in front of the instance we jumped some people.
Tuesday was patch day and with the disconnect issues going on I spent most of my time on my DK. I realize now that some people have no business trying to PvP. My DK was level 60 at the start of the night and in the starter gear you get for the initial quests. I am running around in hellfire and I end up in a bad pull. I had about 6 mobs on me beating me about the head and shoulders. I do OK and end up killing off three of them when another DK grabs me and commences to attacking me. So, I turn my attention to him and kill him. I look at his level and he is a 62. What?!? OK must be a fluke. I finish off the last three mobs and have to resummon my pet since he did actually kill that. Then I decide to see if I can kill some more mobs and stack up 5 more. Halfway through the same DK attacks again. He ends up with the same fate as last time. This time I did end up turning into a ghoul but did not die until I exploded myself so I could rez into my normal body. The he commences to attack again with no mobs on me. I really don’t get it. He couldn’t kill me while I was fighting a bunch of mobs and now he attacks me at full health and read for him. He died. Again and again. I think KoS said like 10 times I killed him that night before he gave up. I finally continue on and make level 61. Then I am fighting three of those ravager things to get their eggs and a retribution paladin hits me. I figure I am done now he’s level 63. Next thing I know I am standing there with his corpse, and the corpse of 5 ravagers ( got some adds in the running around fighting) and at like ¾ health. He didn’t come back for more. Lesson to be learned if you can’t PvP don’t attack people who are not bothering you.
When the servers finally came back online and stayed working I logged on my pally and did my cooking daily and logged off.
Thursday, our designated raid night came and when raid time came around I was online with 8 others waiting for one of our tanks to come online. Long story short at like 0100 he still had not come on. We ran heroic Gundrak and the purple ring dropped. The funny thing is I replaced the ring I had just gotten from heroic nexus on Monday.
We got into some PvP before the run in the crystallized fire farm in Borean Tundra. Those guys were good. We were not so much. They had titles we do not. You know the titles like Brutal Gladiator and the flawless victor. We finally ran the three of them off when our fifth showed up. We need to work on our coordination a bit on that. Didn’t help they made the sky’s not so safe with one of them being a shaman and the other a priest. The shaman knocks me off my mount and the priest gives him levitate. The hunter was plinking away as I am falling. And then right in front of the instance we jumped some people.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
No Raid last night
Last night I logged on late (to minutes before raid time) due to work running over and causing my Monday basketball to go late as well. I figured I would get a ration of crap for being late. I should have known better. I had some flasks already and a few plus foods so I could realistically just go to the raid and get started anyway. So I log on and look at the guild list there are three people online (including me). What!?! Oh well, guess were not raiding tonight. I log off and log on my banker/AH character to check some auctions and when I get back on 5 minutes later there are 10 online including me. Wow, talk about bell tappers. Any way I look at what members are online and only two healers and no tanks are on. After I log in i see in guild chat "only need tanks and we are good to go for naxx." So, I look again at the guild list and see that only four of the members are level 80. Granted that several of them have 80 alts we don’t have enough for a naxx run. I say this and get annoyed comments.
So my arena partner logs on and asks if anyone wants to run some arenas. I let him know I am ready let’s go. We end up running some 3vs switching people in and out for points. Then we start our 2vs. Personally I like 2v2 arenas the best. A retribution paladin teamed with a frost mage is a pretty fun combination. The only problem is that last night we had four to five minute queues with our matches lasting less than a minute it was a lot of sitting around waiting for a quick flurry of activity. What I have found is that our cap right now is around 1400. As soon as we went above that we got smacked back down. It was still a lot of fun. By the way, I really need to get some better PvP gear. I really think it is funny when a druid shifts to kitty form and I drop HoJ and proceed to burst them from 100% to corpse before the stun wears off. Let this be a lesson for druids that don’t know, don’t shift to cat form in front of a paladin who has you targeted. The worst match we had was an elemental shaman and an enhancement shaman team. 8 totems make it hard to target who you want without clicking. And for those that don’t know those shamans can throw some serious DPS out. If they FF they can burn down you down before you can say uhh ohh. Anyway we ended around 1400 as I said.
After we finished up with the arenas the guild leader had come on and wanted to discuss raid schedules. We set up a schedule, much to my chagrin. As fun as raids are when they get scheduled it veers closer to the work zone then I prefer. I do understand that when you are dealing with more people it makes sense that you schedule things but, that doesn’t mean I have to like it. I also brought up some loot rules. I had written out a simple looting rules plan a week or so ago and posted it on our guild site and a total of 2 people read it. By the way, that is kind of annoying. I explained it (again annoying to explain something I had already typed up) and after some discussion my policy was for the most part accepted. A couple said they would like to look into DKP and a couple others said that if we used DKP they didn’t want to go on the raids. I will hammer out a few details of my looting rules plan and post it here later on.
While we were having this meeting I was down in dragon blight farming fish for strength food and some idiot level 80 horde warrior starts fishing the node I was on. I mean come on the lake down there has like 5 or 6 spawn points and they respawn fairly quickly. Sometimes I wish they allowed me to hit another horde upside the head. So, I posted his name in guild chat and to our sister guild. I hope he doesn’t need anything from anyone of us.
Finally done with the meeting and with not enough guild members on to run naxx I wanted to run Heroic Gundrak for the ring I need to replace my last green quest piece. But, unfortunately two of the people that would go had already ran it since it was the daily. So, I got everyone to go to heroic nexus. And when we went to the tree boss low and behold the blue ring dropped for me so I am all blues and purples. Now I just need to start replacing my lower blues. I wish there was a good replacement for the venture co libram.
cya
So my arena partner logs on and asks if anyone wants to run some arenas. I let him know I am ready let’s go. We end up running some 3vs switching people in and out for points. Then we start our 2vs. Personally I like 2v2 arenas the best. A retribution paladin teamed with a frost mage is a pretty fun combination. The only problem is that last night we had four to five minute queues with our matches lasting less than a minute it was a lot of sitting around waiting for a quick flurry of activity. What I have found is that our cap right now is around 1400. As soon as we went above that we got smacked back down. It was still a lot of fun. By the way, I really need to get some better PvP gear. I really think it is funny when a druid shifts to kitty form and I drop HoJ and proceed to burst them from 100% to corpse before the stun wears off. Let this be a lesson for druids that don’t know, don’t shift to cat form in front of a paladin who has you targeted. The worst match we had was an elemental shaman and an enhancement shaman team. 8 totems make it hard to target who you want without clicking. And for those that don’t know those shamans can throw some serious DPS out. If they FF they can burn down you down before you can say uhh ohh. Anyway we ended around 1400 as I said.
After we finished up with the arenas the guild leader had come on and wanted to discuss raid schedules. We set up a schedule, much to my chagrin. As fun as raids are when they get scheduled it veers closer to the work zone then I prefer. I do understand that when you are dealing with more people it makes sense that you schedule things but, that doesn’t mean I have to like it. I also brought up some loot rules. I had written out a simple looting rules plan a week or so ago and posted it on our guild site and a total of 2 people read it. By the way, that is kind of annoying. I explained it (again annoying to explain something I had already typed up) and after some discussion my policy was for the most part accepted. A couple said they would like to look into DKP and a couple others said that if we used DKP they didn’t want to go on the raids. I will hammer out a few details of my looting rules plan and post it here later on.
While we were having this meeting I was down in dragon blight farming fish for strength food and some idiot level 80 horde warrior starts fishing the node I was on. I mean come on the lake down there has like 5 or 6 spawn points and they respawn fairly quickly. Sometimes I wish they allowed me to hit another horde upside the head. So, I posted his name in guild chat and to our sister guild. I hope he doesn’t need anything from anyone of us.
Finally done with the meeting and with not enough guild members on to run naxx I wanted to run Heroic Gundrak for the ring I need to replace my last green quest piece. But, unfortunately two of the people that would go had already ran it since it was the daily. So, I got everyone to go to heroic nexus. And when we went to the tree boss low and behold the blue ring dropped for me so I am all blues and purples. Now I just need to start replacing my lower blues. I wish there was a good replacement for the venture co libram.
cya
Monday, January 19, 2009
Catch up
Well, I haven’t posted in awhile. I have been finding that when I log on in the evening after work I want to advance my main character (the paladin). So, I look to see who is on in the guild and most times we have ten people on plus or minus two. Then when I look to see who it is there is one or two people on that have tanks and the rest are all DPS types. I know I shouldn't say anything as I am on a DPS character right now as well. Seeing as I want to make my character better I go and do some quests for reputation and gold and make sure to do the dailies for the Wrymrest Accord. At some point someone with a healer gets on and we go do a heroic. I guess no one wants to run a healer now. I am glad that we can usually find a tank to run but, as the only thing I have ever done with my paladin is DPS and tank, it makes it hard to do a run.
I could try to round up a healing set and spec holy but, that’s not the type of paladin I am. I have never gone further into the holy tree then tier 2 or 3 for some divine strength and some off healing junk to get into some groups before paladin could do the massive amounts of DPS they do now.
OK as for an update since I haven’t posted in awhile. I got exalted with Wrymrest and got my pants and the drake. I finished exploring Northrend to get the tabard. I upgraded most of my gear by doing heroics. There is only one piece of my gear that is still a quest reward. The only good rings I have found are in heroic Gundrak and heroic nexus so, I have been trying to do those as much as possible. I haven’t had enough time to see what the proc rate is on the mirror of truth yet even though I went ahead and got one. While I was questing in storm peaks I went ahead and used the polearm from the rep gear and topped off that weapon skill to give me my fourth weapon to 400 for the achievement.
Now I need to get my warlocks tailoring skill up so I can make some new bags to get more storage space. I might do some leveling on him so I can get some cloth to make that stuff since I spent 1.6k gold on a dragon mount.
I could try to round up a healing set and spec holy but, that’s not the type of paladin I am. I have never gone further into the holy tree then tier 2 or 3 for some divine strength and some off healing junk to get into some groups before paladin could do the massive amounts of DPS they do now.
OK as for an update since I haven’t posted in awhile. I got exalted with Wrymrest and got my pants and the drake. I finished exploring Northrend to get the tabard. I upgraded most of my gear by doing heroics. There is only one piece of my gear that is still a quest reward. The only good rings I have found are in heroic Gundrak and heroic nexus so, I have been trying to do those as much as possible. I haven’t had enough time to see what the proc rate is on the mirror of truth yet even though I went ahead and got one. While I was questing in storm peaks I went ahead and used the polearm from the rep gear and topped off that weapon skill to give me my fourth weapon to 400 for the achievement.
Now I need to get my warlocks tailoring skill up so I can make some new bags to get more storage space. I might do some leveling on him so I can get some cloth to make that stuff since I spent 1.6k gold on a dragon mount.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
hardcore or softcore
I was listening to a podcast today and heard more of the hard-core/soft-core debate. I figured I would post my opinion on this. I personally can’t figure out which side of the line I am on so, I will present what I like to consider a neutral point of view.
If your goal is to complete all the content of a game as fast as humanly possible then have fun doing it but, don’t complain when two months after release you don’t have anything left to do. Also, I am not sure where I stand on the achievement thing yet but, I do think it can be a good tool for those who think they have done everything there is to do in the game. In other words, just because you have finished the current highest level raid on heroic doesn't necessarily mean you have “finished” the game. Have you done all the instances in WotLK? Have you done all of them on heroic? Have you done all of the raids on 10-person? Have you done all of them on 25-person? That is just WotLK dungeons. There are also the BC instances and raids. Oh yeah don’t forget there was an entire world before BC that had instances and raids too. So, you’ve done all of the instanced content? Have you done all the quests in all the WotLK zones? Good job. How about the BC zones? Again don’t forget the old world zones. You finished all the quests in all the zones? How is your reputation? Are you exalted with everyone? Great! Have you explored all the zones?
Anyway I think/hope you get the point. There is probably more to do. Some of these things may or may not be things you want to do. The point is that the game has tons of content to do. I assume it was made keeping in mind that different people want to do different things.
The real question is should the developers cater to the top 5% of the players? Should they cater to the rest of the player base? The answer is yes. Without a doubt they should. That being said, I think that a proportional amount of development time should be spent based on the quantity of paying customers that are actually going to get to use/see the product.
If your goal is to complete all the content of a game as fast as humanly possible then have fun doing it but, don’t complain when two months after release you don’t have anything left to do. Also, I am not sure where I stand on the achievement thing yet but, I do think it can be a good tool for those who think they have done everything there is to do in the game. In other words, just because you have finished the current highest level raid on heroic doesn't necessarily mean you have “finished” the game. Have you done all the instances in WotLK? Have you done all of them on heroic? Have you done all of the raids on 10-person? Have you done all of them on 25-person? That is just WotLK dungeons. There are also the BC instances and raids. Oh yeah don’t forget there was an entire world before BC that had instances and raids too. So, you’ve done all of the instanced content? Have you done all the quests in all the WotLK zones? Good job. How about the BC zones? Again don’t forget the old world zones. You finished all the quests in all the zones? How is your reputation? Are you exalted with everyone? Great! Have you explored all the zones?
Anyway I think/hope you get the point. There is probably more to do. Some of these things may or may not be things you want to do. The point is that the game has tons of content to do. I assume it was made keeping in mind that different people want to do different things.
The real question is should the developers cater to the top 5% of the players? Should they cater to the rest of the player base? The answer is yes. Without a doubt they should. That being said, I think that a proportional amount of development time should be spent based on the quantity of paying customers that are actually going to get to use/see the product.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Holiday break
It has been a couple weeks and I have really not gotten much done due to spending a week or so out of town.
As a guild we have been doing some heroics and gave two of the 10-mans a try. Notice I said try. I think our DPS needs to gear up. Our tanks and healers seem to be doing fine but, the bosses stay alive too long so the healers end up running out of mana. I am not sure what DPS we are supposed to be at but, I am at around 1400-1800 depending on the fight. The next guy down (yes I am on top) is around 1300-1400. We had a couple of our guys PUG nax but, I don’t like PUG’s and there are still morons out there that think retribution paladins can’t DPS. I also got my northrend dungeon master achievement.
I got my purple crafted two-handed mace and helm. So my instance DPS set is shaping up OK. Let me tell you, that helm made a big difference in overall DPS (around +100), way more than I had expected. And that is without an enchant or gem in it yet. The mace I had expected to have a large impact and it did add around 100-150 or so. I still have not gotten around to making a plan for upgrades yet.
I am working on wyrmrest accord reputation currently. I really want the dragon mount but, the purple pants will be nice as well. Next will probably be ebon hold for the head enchant.
I teamed up with a frost mage for my first arenas of the season and we pulled off a 5-5 set of ten. My partner was the guy from our raids sitting at number two in DPS. We really had no problem with other two DPS teams but, healer-DPS teams posed some difficulty for us. Some of those healers can heal like crazy. I really can’t believe that with both of us banging away at the healer he can keep himself alive. We had problems with all the brands of healers. One of the fights was a DK/DK team both unholy far enough to get the ghoul form thing after you die. While that ghoul doesn’t last long if we concentrated on it, we both seemed to space out the fact that the ghoul might appear. So, when it happened the first one that died came around and killed the mage, I killed the other one and then both of those ghouls focus fired on me. I think with a little more practice we can do pretty good in there. We also did some 3v3 fights with a resto shaman, frost mage and ret pally. Those went ok. And we did a few two ret pally and resto shaman. Those went ok as well.
As a guild we have been doing some heroics and gave two of the 10-mans a try. Notice I said try. I think our DPS needs to gear up. Our tanks and healers seem to be doing fine but, the bosses stay alive too long so the healers end up running out of mana. I am not sure what DPS we are supposed to be at but, I am at around 1400-1800 depending on the fight. The next guy down (yes I am on top) is around 1300-1400. We had a couple of our guys PUG nax but, I don’t like PUG’s and there are still morons out there that think retribution paladins can’t DPS. I also got my northrend dungeon master achievement.
I got my purple crafted two-handed mace and helm. So my instance DPS set is shaping up OK. Let me tell you, that helm made a big difference in overall DPS (around +100), way more than I had expected. And that is without an enchant or gem in it yet. The mace I had expected to have a large impact and it did add around 100-150 or so. I still have not gotten around to making a plan for upgrades yet.
I am working on wyrmrest accord reputation currently. I really want the dragon mount but, the purple pants will be nice as well. Next will probably be ebon hold for the head enchant.
I teamed up with a frost mage for my first arenas of the season and we pulled off a 5-5 set of ten. My partner was the guy from our raids sitting at number two in DPS. We really had no problem with other two DPS teams but, healer-DPS teams posed some difficulty for us. Some of those healers can heal like crazy. I really can’t believe that with both of us banging away at the healer he can keep himself alive. We had problems with all the brands of healers. One of the fights was a DK/DK team both unholy far enough to get the ghoul form thing after you die. While that ghoul doesn’t last long if we concentrated on it, we both seemed to space out the fact that the ghoul might appear. So, when it happened the first one that died came around and killed the mage, I killed the other one and then both of those ghouls focus fired on me. I think with a little more practice we can do pretty good in there. We also did some 3v3 fights with a resto shaman, frost mage and ret pally. Those went ok. And we did a few two ret pally and resto shaman. Those went ok as well.
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