MgT?

Funny about the new Magister's instance in 2.4, no-one knows what the heck to call it in Looking for Group. I've watched with interest though, and it can't be MT because of Mana Tombs or Mag because of Magtheridon's Lair, so I've started seeing the acronym MgT start to take hold... well at least on Barthilas. So... what do you guys call it?

Anyway, over the weekend I took Rexkicker through the non-heroic version, and only remembered towards the end of instance that my new fear works on demon's as well. Damn, I wish I remembered that earlier, I want to CC that demon add on the third boss that does the fire damage. Wiped a few times on Kaelthas and a few accidental pulls on trash, but all in all not to bad for a geared group. The epic druid cape dropped with res and armor, but it got De'd.

So I then took a break and did the Sunwell Offensive dailies, I got a Badge of Justice from one of the supply packs! Holy cow, these are definitely on my to do list from now on, goodbye Skettis dailies. Being on a PvP server though, its all out warfare, the dailies take ages to do because of the constant ganking going on. I wear my full PvP gear to quest there trinkets and all. Sure it takes a bit longer but its much better than waiting 2 mins to res after you've been ganked for the fifth time.

I then tried MgT on Heroic, the lure of an epic off each boss was too much to ignore and I'm really gunning for the Shard of Contempt seeing as expertise isn't exactly the easiest stat to get. We only got up to the second boss though before our tank and one of our dps had to go to ZA. Doesn't matter though, we weren't getting past the second boss anyway as we wiped about 3 times on him.

The arcane damage was just to great. I was getting hit for about 3k per blast and with the Violet Badge trinket equipped (45 Arcane Resistance), it mitigated up to half that amount. But it wasn't enough, and I'm not going to let some frickin arcane damage stop me from some epic loots. So I went through my stash of gear that I don't use anymore and dusted off the old Horseman's Helm! I bought a cheap '+4 resist all' gem from the AH and a not so cheap Glyph of Arcane Warding head enchant from the Sha'tar Rep Vendor. So now I'm packing 69 Arcane Resistance and am keen to give it another shot. I'll wear this helm against Kaelthas as well, so its not as if I've gone crazy and done this just for one measly boss. The Horseman's laugh will be heard again!

2.4 PvP and Project X - Kara test

Well I'm in Kara atm on Rexamus and waiting for the group to get together for the Prince pull so I thought I'd update my blog.

Since 2.4 I've been busy buying the entry level scrub pvp gear for the moonkin and pally. Its helped heaps and filled in the holes in my arena sets. In fact for the boomkin I have enough resilience now to reach the 224 cap (sitting at 228).

So I've decided to do a small road test with the panzerkin and its been pretty fun tanking trash and stuff and still standing. I'm having mana issues but hopefully once I get more vengeful pieces and a good headpiece, it should help.

The ret pally saw some SSC/TK action last night and we did Lurker and Leo. I finally managed to down the bugger, he's been annoying me since on the previous 3 attempts we haven't been able to do it. The Tsunami Talisman dropped and bidding got out of control, going for 900 dkp, 3 times more than I have in total!

On lurker I was the top dps a first for me, and a sign that I've caught up gearwise. I was flying blind in there, no threatmeter, damage meters or swing timers, so when they posted the results I was shocked with my 960 dps. I'm sure I was spamming CS at the wrong times without my trusty swing timer so I'm confident that next time, I can get more.

Someone asked me how high my attack power can go, and I said it can get over 4k. Which is a bit nuts and hard to believe sometimes but it does happen, have a look below. I was seeing about 4.1-4.5k crits at this level, so its pretty cool when it does happen.

Oh wait the fights starting...

Ah crap, no T4 helm. But at least I have enough badges to get the Cloak of Subjugated power.

That little baby has pushed my armor to 21.7k armor and my stam is just under 10k. A nice upgrade and that next step closer to the dream. :)

Karathress, Morogrim and Vashj

Well a few new fights for me to get used to in SSC.

From my view, Karathress was pretty much take down the Shaman add, take down the hunter add and then pew pew the boss. Simple game plan but hard to execute cause of the damage the tanks were taking. Also the freaking totems! Man those things suck. So yeah totems FIRST!

Morogrim, well this fight I had to strap on my prot gear and tank the murlocs as our normal prot pally had net issues. So in this fight, we had the warrior tanks round em up from the north and south and drop em off to me where I dumped consecrates to get aggro. It was a little different and I enjoy doing it once in awhile. Different pace and variety is always good. I've scraped together 492 defence so at least i'm crit immune.

Tried Vashj tonight, but after about 8 wipes it was enough. This looks like a very technical fight, looks doable but tricky.

Still, got some nice loots namely the Razor Scale Battlecloak and the Worldbreaker! So now I'm gonna retire my Gorehowl and temporarily retire my Cloak of Darkness (until I get some phat BT gem to slot in there to out do the RSB).

The upgrades are doing their bit, I've started to consistently produce 1k+ sustained dps and thats a big psychological barrier thats been broken. Now agonisingly close to breaking 2k ap unbuffed (sitting at 1980!). Lost about 2% crit by using the World Breaker over the Gorehowl. But the +5 expertise rating from being
human, weapon proc, slower weapon speed and higher top end damage should more than compensate.

Ah well I guess I'll get Vashj next time :)

I got a fever!

And the cure, is more dps!!!

Its been a big step progression wise for me with this new guild. I've now cleared 3/4 TK and 2/6 SSC. I keep getting stuck on Leo, and haven't quite gotten used to the timing of his whirlwind (even when using Deadly Boss Mods). Luckily I can bubble my way out of them, but it means I've also had to hold off on using Avenging Wrath (stupid forbearance)... So hopefully soon when I'm good enough at the fight, I can start using my AW without hesitation.

I also came off trial and got my first piece of SSC/TK gear during the week. The Greaves of the Bloodwarder dropped off the Void Reaver, and I was ecstatic to pick that little gem up for minimum dkp. No other bids, woot.

Did a Gruul's raid with a pug last night, trying to get my Dragonspine Trophy. I like doing pugs, because it allows me to demo to other players from lots of different guilds what a decently geared ret paladin can do. Besides, I was eager to test out the new legs! I was happy with the result, was around 930 dps for ages, but it fell to about 880 at the end when the Shammy got snapped. I'm yet to break 1k dps in a sustained fight though, so that and trying to break 2k ap unbuffed (without the Savagery enchant) is my other target. Some of the holy pallies whispered me after the raid, asking for advice about going ret and without making it too complicated I basically told them to get hit capped and gear like an arms warrior. That's what I enjoy most about being a ret paladin though, is helping those paladins that want to do something other than being a healbot. I've been invited back next week to pug for them again, and with that trinket as a lure, I might just be back!

On a side note, Rexamus also got his S3 gloves and Vindicator's belt. I'm inching closer to my panzerkin goal, but more importantly the gloves replaced his last piece of cloth gear, and is in pure leather caster gear. Now sitting at 9.2k health unbuffed and 19k armor, hopefully it shouldn't be too much longer before I can give it a good road test. Lithanial recommended a minimum of 20k armor and 10k health for a heroic so I'm closer to the mark now at least.

Project X update

Just thought I'd give a quick update on Project X.

The Badge of Tenacity has been acquired so I can scratch that off my list. Also got the Moonwalkers. While they moonwalkers aren't tanking specific, they're at least gonna get more armor than the cloth shoes he had while I find something alot more suitable.

The next stage of the gearing process will include 3 separate pieces to be acquired through separate means (pretty much pvp gear) but at the same time. The pvp items have great stam and resilience and will help gear Rexamus efficiently.

1) S3 gloves (one week - currently 1007 arena points): Obtaining this piece is a priority as this will ensure a complete set of leather caster gear.
2) Vindicators Wyrmhide Belt (one week - currently ~ 11k honor): Needing another 7k, the belt will give me a good stam boost.
3) Cloak of Subjugated Power (two weeks - currently 22 badges). Another nice cloak with resilience and also has more stam than my current blue caster cloak. I'll need to do another two Kara runs to get these badges.

These three items will add another 71 res, with my current gear takes Rexamus to a total of 160 res.

All in good time!

Being the newb

Well its been awhile and things have changed. I finally got accepted into a new guild 'Vague' that is in SSC and TK, and you get the feeling that you're being closely watched whenever you step into the 25 man raid environment.

Being the new guy, its a hard road being a ret paladin. I need to prove I'm good enough to earn a slot in the raid as a dps, and then later start squeezing into the shaman's windfury group. For ret paladins, having access to windfury makes or breaks our dps. It can be the difference between getting an invite or not. Why windfury? Well you get a free swing, and when your swing can crit for roughly 2.5k, you don't need to be a genius to work out that this will quickly add up.

This is the part where I think Blizzard really needs to step up to improve the retribution tree. Some paladins want an increase in dps, the majority want more utility, for me I think we need a combination of both. What I would like is a good group buff. 2% increase damage with improved Sanctity Aura is a joke. You can bet that if you have an enhance shammy, he's going to be in the prime melee group. A shammy brings strength of earth totem, heroism/bloodlust, heroic presence for that extra 1% hit and of course Windfury. While my pally brings extra raid buffs that are well received, the poor group buff means I'm left sitting on the sidelines.

So while I am sitting on the non-melee group, this is where I would like ret paladins to have an increase in personal dps. I would like a watered version of windfury (maybe a lower chance to proc?), so that when I do get placed in the real melee group I can use the proper windfury, and not be OP.