Guild update

Back in March of 2013, I told you all that I joined a new guild. Well, that experiment didn't last too long.  Nothing against the guild I joined.  They were all really nice. It just never really felt like "home".

I kinda wonder if any guild will feel like home again without all of my longtime (and retired from WoW) in game friends.

But I'm not ready to give up yet. Yesterday, I got an invite to a new guild. One that I am very hopeful will become my new home for Warlords. Only time will tell, but I am determined to find a new home and do some real raiding in Warlords. I just miss it too much.

Slacker? Yep, that's me

Long time no post, but I have been engorged on the Warlords beta.

The WoD beta has come and almost gone.

Have I gotten the things I set out to do in the beta done?  Yes and no.

If you remember from my last post, I set out to do two main things in the beta (other than finding and reporting bugs and whatnot).

1. To determine if leveling in a protection spec is realistically doable.
2. To experience all of the new 5-man goodness.

So, is it viable to level in a protection spec?  The reason I say viable is that it is possible (although sub-optimal) to do it now.  Shoot, it was possible to level in a protection spec as far back as BC.  I know, I did it.  But in Warlords, Blizzard promised that tank specs would do more damage, and therefore be viable specs for leveling.  So, did they succeed?

In short, yes.

Having tested leveling on my Prot Paladin and my Prot Warrior, I can say that you will definitely be able to quest in your protection spec. 

On to point two.

The reason I stuck to 5-man stuff mostly is because almost all of the raid testing in the beta happens in the middle of the day. You know, when the devs are at work so that they can monitor things. Makes sense.  The only problem with that is, I am also at work.

So, I did not get to do anywhere near as many 5-mans as I wanted to.  But I will say I learned one big thing.  The old prot paladin BC adage of "round 'em up and consecrate" will not work in Warlords.  At least until we over gear the content.  A lot of these trash mobs hit really hard.  And almost all of the packs have things that need to be interrupted.  There is a lot more thought that needs to go into doing a 5-man than we have seen since the early days of Cata.  Back then that was almost exclusively because of the heals going oom before the pull was over.  With Warlords, healing output will just not be able to keep up with the inflow of damage.

So as you venture forth into Warlords I have a couple of tips for you:

1. Use CC on trash (and don't let a DPSer call you a noob for doing it)
2. Take you time, and make sure not to pull more than one pack at a time
3. Watch out for patrolling mobs becoming adds (this has wiped me more than anything else in Warlords so far).

Basically, if you treat every dungeon trash pack like you did when running Heroic Shadow Labs back in BC, you should be fine.