Blizzcon predictions

Another Blizzcon is upon us. The opening ceremony is only hours away. What do I think is going to happen?

1. Pandas......oh yeah, there will be Pandas.

2. A MASSIVE talent overhaul.

This is a win-win

First off, go read this.  Go ahead, I'll be here when you get back.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/3300854#blog

Back?  Good, now my thoughts.

I've really got no problem with these changes, and let me explain why. . .

Threat multipliers

If you look at the state of the game, today, most agree that threat already doesn't matter. Either you have hit a mob and have threat on it, or you haven't hit a mob at all and don't have threat on it. The whole system is very binary right now (sure there are those first 2-3 GCDs of a fight where you may lose threat, but only if an ability misses).  Blizzard changing the base multiplier from 3x to 5x changes nothing except help low geared and new tanks hold threat against raid geared DPS.

This is a win-win.

Active defensive abilities

I don't know how many of you remember tanking as a paladin in BC. The name of the game was to keep Holy Shield up at all times or be one shot (and subsequently replaced by a warrior).

End of story.

The thought of adding more active (read button pushed) defensive abilities makes me a happy and more engaged tank. Anybody who can read a guide can put together an adequate gear set that will let them survive a boss fight right now.  But it will take a good player to use the right abilities at the right time.

This is a win-win.

Conclusion

Back in the day, you could tell a good tank from bad tank by their ability to not threatcap (or at least have a higher threatcap for) the DPS.  That is why I have already seen a lot of crying on forums about this change.  People are stuck in the notion that threat generation is the only way to show how skilled of a player you are as a tank.

I took up tanking 6 years ago because, when the chips are down and the shit hits the fan, I pride myself on being able to eek out those few extra seconds of survival that gets us that boss kill.  It feels good to do that now, imagine how much better it will feel when those few extra seconds were directly tied to how good of a player you are, and not your ability to follow Mr. Robot's gear suggestions.

Going forward, the good tanks will be separated from the bad not by threat, but by their ability to mitigate damage and survive a pull.  I welcome this change. 

The way I see it, anyone who is actually enjoys playing a tank should be praising these changes.

PVP, shadow style

I've never been a huge PVP'er in this game.  

I think that goes back to my early days in WoW levelling in STV on a PVP server.  Getting ganked by lvl 60 players while you are lvl 35-40 sucks.  What sucks more though, is that same lvl 60 character corpse camping you.  They are not even getting any HKs out of the deal.  You know they are just doing it to be a dick.  So, that may have soured me to PVP quite a bit, because I subconciously have always associated participating in PVP with being a dick.

Until now.

PVP'ing on my priest is a blast.  I'm not quite sure how I have missed the boat on melting faces with a shadow priest until now, but man is it fun.  

I may be late to this party, but I am hooked.

Considering that fact that priests wear cloth, I have amazing survivability, and the damage output is just mindboggling at times.  If I can get off three Mind Spikes, then you are toast.  Plain and simple.  Because those three Mind Spikes with be followed up with three instant cast nukes.  And, if you don't give me the time and space required to get off those three Mind Spikes, then I will just dot you up and keep you off of me by other means.

The classes I have the most trouble with are Frost mages (mostly because of their stupid pets) and Rogues (the good ones who keep me stunned).  But even against them, I have a 50-50 chance.

Now, I know I have a LONG way to go before I am actually good in PVP, but at least I am having fun while learning.

DXE? Can it really be you?

So I was perusing a thread over at Maintankadin about Boss Mods and it came up that DXE was updated and available for Cataclysm.

How did I miss this momentus event?

When I first started raiding during BC, I used Big Wigs. And I loved it. As far as I was concerned, Big Wigs was the only boss mod for me. Wrath came out, and all the way through Tier 7, I still used Big Wigs.

Then I changed guilds, and started raiding Ulduar-25. I was still using Big Wigs, but I quickly started noticing that Big Wigs gave me alerts that DBM wasn't giving, and vice-versa.

For instance: On the Kologarn fight in Ulduar, Big Wigs would make a big audible alert whenever the Kologarn tank had 2 stacks of "Crunch Armor". Basically, Big Wigs told me exactly when to taunt the boss. However, I learned that everyone else in the guild was using DBM, so I switched to DBM as well. At least that way, we would all be working with the same set of timers. After I switched to DBM, I screwed up the Kologarn fight the first time, because DBM didn't give me the "Crunch Armor" alert that Big Wigs did. Regardless, I liked a lot of the features of DBM, and stuck with it until well into ICC.

That is when I discovered Deus Vox Encounters (a.k.a. DXE). I instantly loved DXE. I liked the options interface better that DBM, the little "dock" with the boss health, the sounds (although they took a little getting used to), the 3D arrow, the whole "sh'bang". I got so used to the different sound alerts from the Lich King fight, that I still hear them in my sleep sometimes (quick, pickup the Raging Spirit before it kills someone!).

So, as I stated at the beginning of the post, DXE is available and up to date for Cataclysm. Guess what i am downloading as soon as I get home tonight?

I'll give you three guesses, but only the first one counts.

Two Months Gone

Wow.  It’s been two months since my last blog post.  Where does the time go?

Let’s see, what has happened since I last posted?

• Patch 4.2 has hit.
• Paladins got Holy Shield redesigned (which included lots of crying by the window lickers on the official forums).
• EF took another month+ off of raiding because of the persistent attendance issues.
• I have started playing my warrior a lot more, not because of any nerf to my paladin, but just because he is fun.
• I’ve also started doing a ton more PVP in the last couple of weeks (we’ll see how long that lasts).
• I finally power leveled my leatherworker to 525, so I can start providing my own leg armors now

EF did get back to raiding, and with the nerfs that came in 4.2, were able to down Cho’gall on only our second night working on him.What I am doing a lot of, is dailies.  I login every day and do my Molten Front dailies.  I tell you, the day I can stop healing Wounded Guardians of Hyjal cannot come soon enough.

The Heroes Return

After a forced hiatus of over a month and a half, due to attendance woes, Empyreal Fray fielded a raid team last night and actually raided. It felt good. It also felt a little odd. It has only been a month and a half but I know, at least on my part, that there was some serious rust that needed knocking off.

We started at Baradin Hold, where I momentarily forgot where my taunt button was. I'm not sure what happened there, but when it was time to taunt the boss off of the other tank, I instead hit my interrupt button, and then proceeded to question in my mind why the boss hadn't turned toward me. Luckily I figured it out before he did his big thing again.

Then we moved on to Blackwing Descent and proceeded to one-shot the big worm (Magmaw), the fours statues (Omnotron), and captain chemistry (Maloriak).

We did have to pug one DPS, a warrior, and he played pretty well. Although, he did get two pieces of gear off of three bosses and then, without much warning, left.

But such is the price of pugging.

Regardless, it was a great night, and it felt really good to be raiding again. Here's hoping that we can repeat tonight.

Of Trolls and new Tiers

I really need to get better at this blogging thing. I don't post anywhere near enough. Anywhoo . . .

Attendance is still our biggest problem in EF. We have picked up a couple of new players, but at the same time, lost a couple of our core raiders, so it was a zero-sum action. Anyone interested in joining a raiding team that is good, just perpetually short-handed?

Of Trolls

Cataclysm has done something that no other expansion has ever done before. It has continually made me feel sub-standard. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the harder content. It is just the virtual kick to the junk when you wipe in a 5-man. And let me tell you, I have been doing a lot of wiping in 5-mans of late.

Of the two new (new = recycled) troll instances, I have only seen Zul'Gurub. On raid nights, when we are short, we are just running random troll instances instead. I have queued for a random troll instance three times now, and have gotten Zul'Gurub each time. That also means, I have spent three nights in Zul'Gurub. I have yet to finish the instance. Not due to giving up, but just due to running out of time.

The boss mechanics are . . . unforgiving. Anyone who knows us EF people, we have traditionally been weak when it came to mechanics, and tended to just power through fights. In the Wrath era, that was possible, in Cataclysm, not so much. It is funny, most of the bosses we can one-shot (even on the first night). But others, whose mechanics are more brutal (like Zanzil) we wiped again and again on.

Tonight is another scheduled raid night, and while I am holding out hope that we will see 10 people online, I am planning on going back in and finally finishing Zul'Gurub.

New Tiers

Also, a few days ago, Blizzard released the new artwork for the Tier 12 Paladin gear. At first glance, I didn't like it at all. It doesn't even look like plate armor. It seems more like something a Warlock would wear. Much like Tier 10, as I have looked at it more and more, it has grown on me. At first glance, I didn't like Tier 10 either, but when it came time to get rid of it, it was hard. I had really come to love the look of the burning skulls on my shoulders. Maybe it will be the same with Tier 12. We will see.

I do recognize the similarities in style between Tier 12 and Tier 2. It very much has that Inquisitor feel to it again. This time with an added fiery theme.

Me, a Starcaller?

As has been well documented in this blog, Empyreal Fray has been plagued with attendance problems all throughout Cataclysm. Now, we have seen the return of one of our originally planned healers, and times are looking up. However, we still missed two out of three raid nights due to lack of attendance last week. My co-tank, and our regular raid leader was on vacation for one night, so that night was expected.

Anyway, I didn't want another soul draining raid cancelation, so I suggested that we go do all of the hard modes in Ulduar. Sort of a night off, while still spending time to gether as a raid team. Most people in our guild never got their Proto-Drakes out of Ulduar, so I thought that this would be easy, and fun. And, we could knock out the Guild Achievement for Ulduar while were there.

Also, only a couple of the guildies had seen Algalon, so this would allow that as well.

How did it go?

In a word, fantastic.

Flame Leviathan was easy sauce, even with all four towers up. Razorscale only took three attempts to finish off the Iron Dwarf, Medium Rare achievement, and only that because the boss has an enrage timer, and you don't get 25 dwarves in a single fight to begin with. Ignis keeled over without much of a fuss. XT-002 was a snoozefest. Steelbreaker was chosen, and found to be lacking. We got robbed of the Disarmed achievement on Kologarn, but would come back and get it on our second night in Ulduar. The crazy cat lady went purr-fectly. Hodir's hallway trash took longer than Hodir himself. Thorim, was interesting, because the debuff he puts on the tank still reduces defense skill by 200, even though no tank has defense skill anymore. And, to close out the night, we killed Freya, after having to remember the fight mechanics on the fly.

On our second night of the week, We blew through Uludar at a record pace. We skipped Razorscale and Ignis. Disarmed Kologarn, and did the hardmodes of Hodir, Thorim, and Freya again, as I was collecting the parts for the Algalon key. Then we moved on to do Firefighter. Afterwards we continued on to General Vezax, where we smelled saronite and loved it. Then Yogg fell.

We closed out the night with me completing the key to Algalon, and then us killing him as well. Guild Achievement gained, personal achievement gained. New mounts and new titles for most of us. But most importantly, we had a really good time doing it. It was a nice break from Cata raiding. I know, for me at least, it sort of re-filled my tank.

I am chomping at the bit to get back to raiding current content this Sunday night.

Let’s just imagine for a moment

I've been chewing on this for a while, and decided to go ahead and post it.

Not that this has any chance of being implemented, but let's just imagine for a moment. I think that each paladin spec should have its own single target and AOE HoPo finisher, unique to that spec. I also think that each spec should have a single target and multi-target HoPo generator. Something like this:

	Single	Multi
Prot Generator	Crusader Strike	Hammer of the Righteous
Prot Finisher	Shield of the Righteous	Blinding Shield (the old abandoned level 81 Cataclysm ability modified to use HoPo)
Ret Generator	Crusader Strike	Holy Storm
Ret Finisher	Templar's Verdict	Insert AOE spell here (how about Inquisitor's Tempest for a name?)
Holy Generator	Holy Shock	Insert small AOE heal here (how about Virtue's Illumination for a name?)
Holy Finisher	Word of Glory	Light of Dawn

I am a really big believer in symmetry, and believe that the paladin class could use a little more.

A Rifting we will go . . . or will we?

Attendance problems are killing us in WoW. We have three scheduled raid nights a week, but are lucky if we can actually raid once a week right now. It is really a catch 22, as we need more people to join so that we can raid more often, but who wants to join a guild that is having problems putting a raid together on a consistent basis?

So, to pass the time, several guild members have bought and started playing Rift. As I mentioned in my last post, I have done the same (because I am weak).

Now, I know this may come as a surprise to many of you, but I decided before I ever set foot in the game, that I wanted to play a tank.

I guess I'm just a glutton for punishment that way.

For those of you that don't know, in Rift, there are only four classes. Warrior, Rogue, Mage, and Cleric. Sounds boring, right? Each class has eight "callings" to choose from. However, you are limited to three callings in your spec. And initially, you are limited to the first three callings that you choose at level 1, 2, and 4. So imagine that you are new to MMOs in general. This system could get REAL confusing, REAL fast.

That aside, obviously, I am NOT new to MMOs. So what class do I choose? Why warrior of course. Duh! What calling do I choose at level 1? I'll give you three guesses (but only the first one counts).

*crickets*

No one? Okay, I'll give you a hint. It starts with the letter "P" and ends with "aladin".

I know, you're all shocked.

I rounded out my spec with Void Knight (for more magic damage reduction), and Reaver (for more AOE threat). And I started playing with ferver.

Things were moving along well, I got to about level 16 or so, and was getting ready for my first foray into a Rift dungeon, when something strange happened.

I started to resent Rift.

Everytime I login to WoW, things are just stressful and depressing…a.k.a. not fun. Rift, on the other hand is perfectly fun. I just don't want to play it anymore. Not because it is a bad game, it is probably the best MMO I have played outside of WoW, but because deep down inside, I think I blame Rift (fairly or not) for our WoW attendance problems. So now, I have a $50 game that I don't even want to play. And that makes me resent it even more. Because not only is Rift destroying my ability to have fun in WoW, but it also tricked me into paying out $50. I am not only weak, but apparently I am also a moron.

I DO know, that if my WoW guild falls apart, and we quit raiding, I will most likely just quit playing MMOs altogether. I really have no drive to go raid in Rift. As it stands right now, I can't even stand to login to Rift. I would rather go watch TV.

Maybe Star Wars: The Old Republic will capture my interest.

Holy Power Woes

Man, the nerf to HoPo generation that I wrote about in February is both worse, and better, than I initially thought.

Worse, in that I have seen as many as three to four Crusader Strike misses/parries/dodges in a row at times. Let me tell you, that REALLY slows down the inflow of HoPo. It also makes the playstyle feel odd. It's just "off" somehow.

Better, in that I haven't really noticed any practical difference in my ability to tank, because after the first 25-30 seconds, nobody is catching me on threat anyway. It feels sort of like a return to the way Paladin threat was in BC. Back then, a paladin could drop a Consecrate and then go get a sandwich. In Cata, it is similar in that I can do the rotation for about 30 seconds, and then just auto-attack my way to victory. Once Vengeance is stacked up, there is no way I can lose threat.

I wish I was joking.

Back on topic. My HoPo inflow has plummeted in the past few weeks, and other than the annoyance of missing with Crusader Strike over and over again, It has had no measurable effect on my ability to successfully perform my job in a raid situation. We could almost completely ignore one of our resource mechanics if we wanted. Sure, we need to cast something every 20 seconds to keep Holy Shield up, but that is nothing. This is not how I believe Blizzard wants tanks to function.

During Cata development, Blizz stated that they wanted there to be a bigger separation between good and bad tanks. If that is really what they were going for, they have failed. They didn't make the Paladin rotation any harder than it was in Wrath, they just made if less elegant.

One of the big changes in the upcoming patch is that if you use Avenger's Shield within six seconds of a Grand Crusader proc, it will generate a HoPo. So, instead ignoring GC procs, and just sticking AS in its assigned slot in the rotation, we will actually want to use it when it pops up. That would be a welcome change, except that following your rotation/priority system to generate maximum threat is pretty meaningless right now.

Marry the potential increase in HoPo generation with the announced 20 second cooldown on Word of Glory, and Paladin tanks will be forced to use HoPo for threat, when the last thing they need is more threat.

So, what do we do? Well, since we will not be able to use our primary resource system for survivability, and we don't need threat, then the only thing left is to increase our DPS. Also, the increased HoPo income might allow us to perform the taboo and forbidden interweaving of Inquisition and Shield of the Righteous.

Welcome to the New World Order, where tank DPS actually matters.

With patch 4.1, the "skunk line" will get a lot higher.

I am weak

After all of my big talk about not buying Rift, you got it, I bought Rift. I have only played about as far as I got in the open beta, so nothing new to report yet. I did get together last night and form a guild with several other guildies from WoW to form a guild in Rift. Guess I will give it 30 days and see what comes out of it. I can say this . . . it is the best non-WoW MMO I have ever played.

New beginnings

I have a new pet project.

Empyreal Fray currently only raids on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday nights.  On the other nights, the guild is sort of a ghost town as people are either doing other real life things, or have decided to play Rift on our off nights.

I am intrigued by Rift, but personally, I don’t need another subscription to another game right now.

So, what to do?

I started wracking my brain, trying to decide what to do with my Wednesdays and Thursdays.  I started weighing my options and came up with the following:

1.       I could go back to LoTRO.  They have gone free-to-play, so no financial commitment needed there.

2.       I could try out Champions Online, as they have also gone free-to-play.

For those of you that don’t know, I played a bit of LoTRO before.  I had a sub, I bought expansions, and it was a really good game.  But somehow, for me at least, it didn’t measure up to WoW.  So I decided against going back.

Champions Online I downloaded and played through the first ten levels or so.  I quickly decided that I did not like it.  The graphics and sound reminded me too much of City of Heroes (which makes sense since the games are made by the same company).  And the gameplay just didn’t jive with what I wanted.   On a side note, I think Champions Online is the first MMO I have ever played where I believe you have way too many appearance choices when it comes to character creation. 

So those two choices didn’t fly.

I have a druid alt that I have already leveled to 85.  And a warrior one that is lvl 85 as well.  I have a priest that is lvl 83.  Hey, I could finished him off!

Nah . . . I think I am done with the 80-85 grind for a little while.

No character has ever engaged me as much as my paladin, hence, why Gathorc is, and has been since 2006, my main.  But, my first characters I played in WoW, were Horde.  I have a lvl 44 Undead Rogue that I haven’t played since sometime in 2005.  So, that got me to thinking how the story line has progressed on the Horde side.  Then it hit me.  Create a Bloodelf paladin on a different server and level him up from lvl 1!  And just to make it interesting, I’m gonna stick with the default UI (at least for now).

So that is what I am going to do.  See how the other hold lives.  I hear Orgrimmar is really pleasant this time of year.

With all of that in mind, I would like to introduce . . . Khur.

Now, before anyone makes any comment on the name, “No, I did not ‘steal’ it from Khor, of Retributionpaladins.com”.  It came up in the random name generator and I had gotten to level 9 before I noticed the similarity.

No heirloom gear.  No loans of gold from a main with tons of money.  No friends to speak of. No fancy shmancy UI.

Just a lowly lvl 1 paladin learning how to make his way in the World . . . of Warcraft.  LOL

 

Oops, did I forget to mention that I was nerfing you?

So,
I started the day today, just like any other.  Get up.  Go to work.  Start perusing blogs and informational sites about WoW.  Nothing special (well, except the new OOTS today).  Nothing out of the ordinary.
That is, until I come to my daily reading of MMOChampion, where I am greeted with this (Source):

Paladin Bug Fixes

• Crusader Strike, Holy Shock, and Hammer of the Righteous no longer incorrectly grant Holy Power on a miss

Now, this doesn't sound like much, but it is a real kick in the junk to the feel of playing a paladin.  For a Ret, it is not a huge deal, they should be hit capped anyway (or at least really close).  For a Holy paladin, this is not a huge deal, because more often than not, they are using Holy Shock on a friendly player, so they can't miss.  But for a Protection Paladin, this makes our rotation even more clunky than it was already.  The one thing we could count on before was the "pulse" of our rotation.  That every 9 seconds, we could ShotR, WoG, or Inquis.
The worst part is, I (and many other paladins in the community) can remember that Ghostcrawler himself made the change during Beta to allow our Crusader Strike and Hammer of the Righteous to generate Holy Power regardless of if it hit or missed.  He felt, then, that the protection rotation didn't feel right, and needed be stabilized a little bit.
There are many other blogs and forums that are exploding over this situation.  It is not really the change that has us up in arms, so much as the way it was labelled at a "Bug Fix", even though it was an intentional change in Beta.
Oh well...I have played my paladin through all of the ups and downs of this game for over 6 years, but it may be time to finish leveling my Warrior.
We will see.

A kick in the junk, indeed

So,

Many things have happened since my last post.  We didn't raid on Tuesday, the 25th, because we were short people.  That combined with all of the stuff from my last post was pretty deflating.

Then, Wednesday came around, which is not a normal raid day for us, and lo and behold, Alliance actually controlled Tol Barad.  There were about five of us online, so we started putting out phone calls and texts to guildies.  We wanted to get in there before our 2 hour window was up and get some shots in on Argaloth.  After much poking and prodding, we got 10 people online and in a raid.  We then headed to Baradin Hold to kill this guy.  We figured that he is a pretty easy boss, and we wanted our shot at free T11 gear.

So, we go in, and our raid leader starts explaining the fight and the strategy that we are going to use.  Seems easy enough.  First pull, we get to about 20% and wipe.  People (including myself) are having a little issue with the fire.  We come back and wipe a few more times.  Then we look at our timers, and we only have 13 minutes until the next Tol Barad battle.  

After everything that we had gone through in the previous few days, I started getting that "here we go again" feeling.  I really started doubting my skills as a player.  I mean, I killed the Lich King on 25, but I'm not good enough to kill the "lol" boss in Baradin Hold?  Seriously?

So, long story short (too late), we downed Argaloth on that last attempt.  There was a collective sigh of relief by everyone in the guild.  We ended the night on a high note, and it felt great to finally get a raid boss down.  Our raid leader, and my co-tank, even got his T11 gloves.  Grats.

Our next scheduled raid night was the following Sunday.  But we had to cancel again because of being short (so frustrating).  But Monday night came around, and we actually had enough people to raid.  So, we headed to Magmaw.  We were pretty optimistic, but there was still a tangible sense of tension.  We buff up, pull the trash, and then our raid leader starts going over the strategy once more.  We pull it, and surprise of surprises, we one-shot Magmaw!

We were on a guild high now.  So we go and take a few looks at Omnitron just to get comfortable with the rhythm of the fight.  

Then we decide that we are going to go take some shots at Halfus.  Because of the drakes we have up, we decide on a three tank strategy (odd in a 10-man, I know).  We didn't get him down, though.  We did however make some very solid progress.

Then, Tuesday night rolls around.  So, first thing is we go to Magmaw.  Even though we had our boomkin DC in the middle of the fight, we kill Magmaw on our third try.  Then we headed back over to Bastion of Twilight to put some more work in on Halfus.  We discussed our strategy with the different drake combination, and pulled.  We got really close on the first try, but ultimately wiped.  Then, on our second try, down he went.

That is two progression boss kills in as many days.  We took one stab at the double dragons, but that was ugly.  

So, when progression kicks you in the junk, the only thing you can do is kick it right back.

Progression is a kick in the junk

I tell you what. I am not a "Wrath Baby". Anyone who reads this blog (all 3 of you!), knows that I have been playing since Vanilla. I bashed my head against a wall with the best of 'em. But, starting a new guild with the idea of raiding is really hard. On top of that, the fact that we are consistently one healer short makes trying to progress that much harder.

Last night was a great example.

Last week, we worked on Halfus, and finally got some good solid progression on him. At the beginning of the night, we were getting one drake down, but wiping before we got the second down. Then as the night went on, we were getting two drakes down. Then, on the second to the last pull, we got all three drakes down, but hit the enrage timer at 4.5 million remaining health. Then, on the last pull of the night, we got all three drakes down and hit the enrage timer with 3 million health left. We were obviously making solid progress, but we hit out ending time.

Fast forward to last night

After our progress on Halfus last Tuesday night (we got him down to 3 million health when enraged) everyone was coming into this week's raid with high spirits. Unfortunately, Halfus kicked out butts "six ways to Sunday". We weren't even getting one drake down. It was ugly. Things were just not clicking. The only difference was the pug healer that we had to run with (see above statement about being short healers). Now, the pug healer we had last night is good. I know and trust her, and her numbers were good, but still we were having major issues.

So, we decided to go work on Magmaw instead. Now, this is a 1 tank fight, so I have to go heals (did I mention that we are perpetually one healer short), while our bear tanks the boss. It didn't take long before this fight started kicking us in the junk as well. We couldn't do even the most simple things, it seemed.

Then, just when the raid leader and I were talking about quitting early for the night, we gave it one more try, and FINALLY things started to click. We didn't kill Magmaw, but we did get him to 37% (our best attempt thusfar).

The worst part is, neither the raid leader or myself could figure out WHY we were doing so bad. All the numbers seemed inline with the numbers we were pulling last week, but we were getting no where near the successes we saw last week.

I was ready to quit last night. I really was. The frustration was so high, I just wanted to walk away and do something else. That has really never happened to me before during a raid.

I guess we will see how if goes tonight . . . if we have enough healers online.

Holy Paladin! (Re-visited)

This is gonna be a long one (for me anyway).

Our guild is having a serious crisis of a healing sort.  As in . . . out of our entire roster, we only have ONE mainspec healer.  That makes it a little hard to raid.

So, being the team player that I am, I have volunteered to change my second spec to Holy.  

You know, take one for the team.

Now, it has been documented before, and you may, or may not have read it before, but . . . I HATE paladin healing.

I have tried it a few times throughout my WoW career, and it has always felt . . . "Too hectic!!!  Not enought time to get heal off!!!  GAH!!!!"

Well, that was under the old healing model.  Where throughput was everything.  I understand that Paladins have never had throughput issues, but all I know is . . . Healing on a Disc priest is easy, and healing on a Paladin is hard.

That was until last night.  Our one dedicated healer had other plans last night, so I was the only "healer" available for our nightly heroic runs.  After a little cajoling, off we went.

I realized very quickly, that my UI needed some adjustment.  When I first started working on Rotface in ICC, I was always the ooze tank.  And, since I was a paladin, I was also the ooze cleanser.  So, I had made a mouseover macro for my Cleanse, so that I could Cleanse the targets in the game world instead of having to Cleanse a unit frame.  It is bound to one of my thumb buttons on my mouse, and has served em well ever since.  however, for some reason, and I still can't figure out why, my mouseover Cleanse macro just refused to work on the party unit frames.  I was even using the default (raid style) unit frames.  It always did before, so I am not sure what gives there.  Oh well...I just left the mouseover macro keybound to the thumb key on my mouse, but also assigned the normal Cleanse from my spellbook via Clique to the same button.  You know . . . double dip.

Once I got that sorted, I realized that I need to move my party frames.  As a tank, you need to see your party frames, but they don't need to be the center of your attention.  Has a healer,  your party's unit frames are EVERYTHING.  So, unit frames moved from the bottom right of my screen to pretty much dead center.  Lined up right below my toon's feet.

Now keep in mind, I was adjusting all of these things WHILE we were running heroic dungeons.  So making quick adjustments and such between pulls until about 3/4 through the second dungeon of the night.  

Conclusions?

I was actually having a lot of fun.  Hectic at times, but in a good way.  I need to get out of the WotLK mind set of keeping everyone healed up to max all of the time.  There were a few fights where my mana got dangerously low.  The Beauty fight in Stonecore (for example), I ended the fight with 2100 total mana (keep in mind that my in-combat MP5 is just over 2000).  

I was using cooldowns constantly.  

I was involved.  

I was entertained.

So, the Big Shiny Shiled may have a little more shine and a couple fewer dings in the coming expansion.

We will see.

Long Time...No Post

It has been along time since I posted anything here. But that is okay, because I don't have any readers anyway.

What has happened since my last post? Let's see.......

1. Cataclysm has been released. Just in case you guys weren't aware.

2. I have leveled Gathorc to 85 and have begun running heroics. I have also levelled the warrior and priest to level 81 each.

3. Have started a new guild with several of my closest friends. This was planned long before Wrath was over, but now it is done. What was not part of the plan was the fact that, somehow, I ended up being the Guild Master.

4. Have had to work much harder than I originally thought in order to get enough people ready to raid with this new guild. Had some folks who were part of the original plan drop out, which left us short on people, but we are getting there.

5. Have spent much money and time levelling up mining and blacksmithing to 525.

6. I got a sexy new 24" monitor for my birthday. My UI has been completely rebuilt, and I like it a lot. I may make a post on it later this week.

I am already sporting 160k health buffed in heroics, and only currently have one purp...the BS crafted shield. First guild raid is this week, and I am really looking forward to that. It is time to get back in the groove of progression again. I realize we are weeks behind, but that matters little. I am here to have fun with my friends, and that has already been accomplished.

I will be posting much more often now that raids will be starting up again (hopefully).

oh, and . . . . . Happy New Year!