Wednesday 17 December 2008

Somethings coming for Blizz......

I have been a long believer in nothing stays ahead for all time, sooner or later something rises up against the leader of all MMO games. I have searched for a good 2 years for comparison game's to warcraft, knowing that sooner or later, Blizzard will have it's competition, come from nowhere.

Im not the usual person to say something is a wow killer, or this will be wow's new competition. I had reserved feelings about warhammer online, knowing it didnt quite look quite there, and other games like age of conan...
However, i am willing to stick my head out firmly here, and say..this will..put pie in warcraft's soup. Look at the character creation, and just about every other aspect of the game, and you just have to think....that cannot be real? seriously?

All you have to do, is sit back, and watch.. Out in May 2009, watch your watching is live closed beta in Korea. within 48 hours, NCSoft had to power up 25 extra servers. And eventually handled 170,000 + players in there first 3 days





You thought bosses where big in wow?



And here is the selection of classes, i recommend you watch the HD version



Character Creation


Part 2


And some ingame footage

Wednesday 10 December 2008

Unholy to Blood

After playing from 55 to level 68 as full unholy, i noticed my dps never seemed to climb any higher (on average) than 300 DPS.
Alot of the talents in this tree focus on pets, tanking abilities for AE tanking, (Trash) and so on, its almost like a prot pala. Other than the pet, it feels a little un-exciting over a period of leveling.

So im opting to have a go with the blood spec. Its more of a High DPS single target, single tank class role, with self healing done by damage output.
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=jfEMqh0IcfotzAoZb im 68, so this would be a good start in the tree for me to dive into.
I have tried duel welding, (in Unholy) and the DPS doesnt match the 2 hander sword, so i will try this with blood spec, and see if there closer. Im told DPS is x2 when switched to blood spec, so we'll see tonight!

Wednesday 3 December 2008

Death Knight

3 levels to go So far, outlands has been good to rush through. The DK has proven worthy of leveling solo, and capable as hunter almost in that class of leveling with a ghoul. Im still wearing the same blues at level 65 as i did when i left the DK starting area. Mostly because i like the look of it, but i am collecting gear and banking it as i go along, defence gear etc, and dps quest rewards and trinkets. 5 more evenings hopefully and i will be there. How is everyone else?

Well i managed 52% on level 65 so should hit 66 tonight. Then only 2 levels to go before i can catch the boat.
Im daunted about looking in the AH for any gear, before i head over, its probably all inflated to high hell.
Still saving for my flying skill, I wont need that anyway until level 76-78 anyway for NorthRend? If I can get away without getting a flying skill at in TBC. …but I probably will have to get one at some point for Netherstorm. Thats my next port of call after Nagrand, and the last area i level in before going to North Rend.

No professions at the moment, none, i'll think about that stuff after capping 80 though. Makes more sense to find out what im using, and then choose.

Non-stop. Compared to the paladin, the DK can non-stop (Depending on health) chain pull mobs constantly one after another, without breaks. This has been a world of difference in play, questing and ginding. And a welcome difference for both play style and play time..nothing worse than having to sit down after every fight for mana. But the same can be said for eating to get health back..;) and bandages, both at the same time is a pain lol

Wednesday 22 October 2008

3.0.2 Gear Spreadsheet

And Deeper into the gear charts for current patch
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pxRKUgjn9TRr-KY-8OzuQRQ

POW-PPPPPP-POW

Well, that didn’t last very long at all did it?
After playing a little on the PTR before the patch came out I wasn’t too impressed at the changes made. However in my typical subburn self of double checking and taking a leap of faith I hooked up Nad's shield and Sword and had a blast around the Isle of Dailies.
Much to my surprise, I appeared to be cleaving my way through mobs with very relative ease. I was addicted to the RSI & bunny staring at the head lights syndrome of right click, left click, 12121212 (Hammer of Righteousness and Holy Shield). Bagging my Armani Punisher and switching to the Blue rep reward sword from SSO, I found a new level of glee watching HOR crit for over 1k. Then higher when I switched to the Aldor rep epic sword, for 1.3k Holy damage.
WTF have you done to my pala Blizz? I think I love it.
No more crushing blows 102.5% bollox, just 490 Defence and get on with it…And about bloody time, feels like the paladin class have been relieved of its pink condom and allowed to breath, DPS, and tank with a decent proper tanking sword, mana issues sorted out with a buff that was more relevant to tanking (Sanctuary). Spell damage in relation to total stamina. Hammer of Justice interrupts spell casting on bosses…..who ever you are on the side of paladins, you deserve a Christmas bonus my friend, from both Ret and Protection paladins alike!
The pain in the ass now, is now getting a sword to get me back upto 490+ defence. -20 defence from anticipation, replaced by 5% dodge.
There's Honor"s Call and then there's The Sun Eater and its rpeety much a gamble of whether i will get HH rep first or H mech gets lucky.

Tuesday 7 October 2008

Whats in a name...Nadiastorm Retires

A name means alot to folk that follow it, who are familiar with it. It has it's pro's and con's and all balances between good and bad reputation that name has earned throughout its gaming career.
I'm happy to say I have loved every moment, both good and bad as my career as a protection paladin. From the early days of tanking, when it was'nt a paladins role to tank at all other than be Ret or Holy specced.
As a GM, nothing changes, im the same player through and through, with the same mindset for a casual guild. Making good use of those who share the ideal of casual gaming and raiding and getting somewhere on the night.
It had to come to a point where I questioned whether I would play another class sometime, and I thought that time would have been on the release of The Burning Crusade, but circumstances prevented that, a guild split etc brought Nad up to the fore-front again by the members remaining to get a new guild going, …TDD. Otherwise i would have rebuilt TBR.
Im confident today that the guild will remain stable through the TBC to WOTLK expansion, folk are beginning to relax, think ahead, and enjoy the game for what its meant to be, a game. And the pressure of driving forward has subsided a little and people are more focused on their roles. Some new faces having also the oportunity to shine and show their skills and personality too. Everything seems to look, long standing, and even if there was a blip again, im sure we would still continue to survive as we always have, and a team fo friends. They have stood the test of adverse conditions of guild drama and politics to still remain loyal with the guild.
Other than enchanting people who still need enchanting, before the patch, Nad will remain dormant within the guild until the expansion, where I hope to return her back to where she belongs. She will be up for tanking 25 man's as required byt as a status of ALT should any ask if i want loot.
I have a lot of fond memories and experiences as a paladin, and will remember them all. And for what i really wanted to do, instead of doing what i felt was nessesary to keep online friends together within a guild, with something to do, now is the time to bid farewell to Nadiastorm.

Wednesday 24 September 2008

WOTLK Talents

http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=sZE0xIxcz0gqekGoVbx
I have been musing over the new talents for the expansion. And wanted to draft up form talents for when patch 3.0.2 comes, while we are still in TBC at level 70.
Redoubt, has changed!! i didnt notice it, but 3 points in it actually gives you 30% Block Value flat rate, plus 10% to add 30% to Block chance. Where before, it was just, 19% chance to get 30% block chance, nice, and about time. I think this build will be ok to finish off TBC.
Level 80
I so want to have Reckoning back....So badly
http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=sZE0xIxcz0gqekGoVbx
Some more info:
Most paladin abilities are being changed to scale with both AP and SP.Since we are going to be sharing our gear with warriors and DKs, most if not all prot and ret gear is going to have AP/Strength on it since it is one of the main stats for warriors and DKs.Here are a couple of examples of how mechanics are changing, via mmo-champion.com:
Avenger's Shield: Hurls a holy shield at the enemy, dealing [ 7% of AP + ( 754.35 to 765.27 ) ] Holy damage.
Shield of the Righteous: Slam the target with your shield, causing Holy damage equal to 200% of your block value. This spell causes a high amount of threat. (Strength provides you with block value, and the conversion rate is being increased in the expansion)
Holy Shield: Increases chance to block by 30% for 10 sec and deals 211 Holy damage for each attack blocked while active. Damage caused by Holy Shield causes 35% additional threat. Each block expends a charge. 4 charges. (this means that even though we will have less SP, HS will still scale with it, and cause 35% more threat so it should end up causing equal threat to what we cause now)
Consecrate: Consecrates the land beneath the Paladin, doing [ 32% of AP + 940.16 ] Holy damage over 8 sec to enemies who enter the area.
Seal of Righteousness: Fills the Paladin with holy spirit for 2 min, granting each melee attack [ 5% of MWS (weapon speed) * AP ] additional Holy damage.I think that's most of the abilities that paladins use while tanking to build threat. Exorcism and Holy Wrath are used situationally, and will also scale with AP. Judgements are also going to cause damage based on AP. [edit] Looking at Judgements a bit deeper, as they work on Beta right now, all Judgements deal damage based on both AP and SP, the Seal is no longer consumed. Instead, the Seals modify the damage dealt by the Judgement. JoB/JoM and JoC increase damage based on weapon damage (which is modified by AP) and JoV/JoC and JoR are modified by a set percentage (10% per application of DoT and 25%, respectively). All seals now scale with AP either directly (SoV/SoC and SoR scale with both SP and AP) or indirectly (SoC and SoB/SoM scale with weapon damage, which scales with AP). SoV/SoC and SoR scaling with AP means you won't lose out on threat by using a warrior/DK tanking weapon since we will be getting SP and AP from gear and more SP from Stam via a talent. [/edit]When you include some talents in the prot tree: +15% Strength from Divine Strength, +10% Strength from BoK. That's a nice amount of extra AP for threat gen.Tanking gear is also going to change to match new mechanics. Look up gear here on Wowhead and see how it is itemized.Seriously, before you start QQing about the new abilities, look at the whole picture and realize that the game mechanics are also being changed and then think about how the new mechanics are going to work with the updated talents and spells. Yes, with the current prot paladin gear, these changes might suck, but they aren't meant to work with the current gear.Everything I've mentioned seems to point to Blizzard wanting Prot Paladins to use the "regular," warrior tanking weapons since they would deal more damage with Hammer of the Righteous. It is also likely that we'll see warrior/DK tanking weapons include strength in their stat bonuses.
Last edited by
atticus on 08/13/2008 (Patch 2.4.3)

Tuesday 16 September 2008

WOTLK and TDD

It great that wotlk is being released. We have had a hand full of members leave for raiding guilds to see new content (before the news was announced), im quite happy about folk moving on to do things like this. If they leave with a positive memory of TDD, all the better, and I prefer that. If not, it was probably better that they moved on too, to find new joy in the game with another guild that could offer them more of the game with folk that have more time to play it. Folk sitting brewing over issues they don’t agree with rubs off on others, whether they mean to, or not.
We can only do so much with the time we have online, with our IRL commitments, and that is the design of the guild, that’s what we are, and that’s when we play. Online when we can be, offline when we need to be.
I love running this guild, it's practical to play the game and enjoy it without harming IRL issues. I still play this game with the same enthusiasm as I had when I first installed the game.
Stop, Regroup, then Continue.
I don’t think everyone new to TDD entirely understands the method behind that strategy.
From the outside it would seem like maddness I guess. Guild closes shop, puts up the gate and says nobody allowed in, access denied, and a public statement that we are no longer recruiting.

Other than it has been something we have done before in TDD, most TDD members expect it, and some new folk can read between it. And while I cant say blunty im shacking the tree to see what leaves fall off. ...That’s basically the idea.
It might appear to be a crisis being posted on the front page, but that depends on your point of view. It's difficult to gauge things when people are undecided, or quiet in their indecision, to suddenly up and leave while we made plans for them.

Tuesday 26 August 2008

1,2,3 Done

Tonight we did it, HKM, Gruul and Maggy down (Maggy took 2 tries after an accidental pull) But a real boost for the guild confidence to finally run its own 25 man raid without assistance.

Friday 22 August 2008

... 5 more please

The co-operation raid didnt come together last night. Our co-op guild had a very bad sign up and maybe not enough to gather 5 folk. However, TDD did have 20 folk signed up. 26 if you include those who cancelled.
We got a little help from some friends in Home of the Ghostlords, and it was very much appriecated. I did feel a little noobish in their company though lol. Never the less, i hope they had fun, however we didnt get Maggy down, which was a shame, because we kept getting him down to 35-37% and making silly mistakes, with cube clicking and the MT dying.
With that in mind, i am canvasing the guild about Tuesday, and Kiddman's Challenge. Some folk who i thought would have known about it, did'nt, so just aswell i mentioned it in guild chat. The challenge was if TDD could gather its own 25 man, and defeat Gruuls, Kiddman would do anything for TDD, ...and being the jesters we are..we are going to hold him to it!
The Wednesday is looking like the TDD 25 man night, along with the Thursday. The high sign up for mid-week is something to be capitalised on, and the weekend posting of Kara raids seems to be taking on, so some adjustment in the organisation there, i think we'll have to transition that across in the next week. As there is a que for 10 man raids equaling upto 15-20 people. Pop a 25 man in there and i think it could be obtainable.

Thursday 21 August 2008

Raiding and new Recruits (trial members)



he suprising thing is, the time between i was last in Karazhan with TDD Main Tanking trash, and Offtanking bosses as a backup. Maybe its my approach to raiding, being the GM and leading the raid everyone gets their focus head on, and see's the raid push on, be on the ball. And maybe it isnt. I dont know.. Shade down on the first night after the reset, and maybe 15 mins downtime in total. It was good overall. And i think folk who clear Kara in one evening must be starting their raids at 6pm and finishing at 11:30pm, we start at 8pm and finished at 11:30pm last night. Would another hour made the difference? Not likey with the setup we had, mostly Melee and 3 ranged DPS (Mage, Hunter and Warlock) But not all the big guns where not in this raid, Burlok, Gallbatorix, Leni, Shaylee, Adremelech, Tem etc Although Triv and Logum there made the DPS group work out and without them i think the run could have gone south very quickly. BUT, the whole point about Wednesday runs, is for those not within the guilds raiding gear average, a chance to catch up in gear to join in with the 25 man events, and i think it worked out well all round. Our Trial member for the night was Mickes friend (in RL) Amyss, and i had no concern about loot handing out.
yjal, amongst nobody else i have been reading up on Mount Hyjal. Tonight our co-operative raid goes to Maggy instead of Gruul as normal. If Maggy is one shotted, then SSC would be the normal avenue to go. However, looking at the state of play, between both guilds at this present time, and no preparation with Frost and Nature Resistant gear, i am reluctant to goto Lurker below for maybe 2-3 shots before a respawn. However reading up on MH eveything is local, you can run back into the raid halfway through trash waves etc (except from the boss fight itself), i had a play around myself, aggroing the Alliance NPC with the various waves, and it looks pretty easy from a paladin tanking point of view. Norritt has signed up, so hopefully Maggy will be one shotted, the co-operation will go fairly and smoothly, in hindsight of the previous weeks. We will see...

I had to poke two members of the guild this week, about their trial membership, Cesaya and Selass. 1 month trial and both havent really intergrated into the guild as well as i would have hoped. Selass has been working, but it turns out Cesaya has been playing a Shaman on another server, and has lost faith and enjoyment in the resto druid. Just aswell i asked though, so i have placed her on Visitor status until the end of her trial period to make up her mind, and then i will remove her from TDD if things are still grey on the decision area. Cesaya was ok about it, and there were no hard feelings if she was removed before hand. Talking like this in the open helps, not just you as a GM, but the over all attitude of your guild. Guild see's you poking politely and asking questions, members respond, and everyone knows whats going on. If a member leaves your guild on good terms, the leave with a positive impression, that rubs off on other guilds, players, and party (pug groups) they form, and word spreads. It takes a lifetime to build a reputation and respect, and 1 minute to destroy it. And after all, it doesnt hurt to talk about things, as after all, this is a game we play...not a life we lead.

Monday 18 August 2008

A GM's work is ....

We re-established the co-opertaion raids again. However there was a combination of circumstances prior to the raid TDD had to deal with. One member of the guild switching class and specc and then asking to switch his main character again after winning loot from other main raiding characters during that time, was met with swift resistance from the guil dofficers on our forum. The player then left the guild. On the edge of that, the raid setup for the co-operation raid was complete from the TDD side, however our co-operation guild had some Alts, and new to the co-op raid players. Me not being able to voice chat due to toothache (which got fixed on Friday hurrah!) couldn’t really intervene. Needless to say there was a lot of, Alt rolling against main raiders, and new folk rolling against tanks for T4 legs, while wearing epic gear anyway, over TDD's feral druid in blues, and our Micke. Meantime our Priest's, all passing for the tanks, that nobility didn’t pass onto the co-operative guild, nor did that sense of Raid first, individuals after.
It might have been a lax of continuity from previous weeks, since the hold on co-op's. And the out of practice dilemha of working together, however key members of TDD have gotten a little fed up, of rolling against people they havent seen raid before, or against an Alt.
We dealt with our issues of Alts and Trailist members rolling after Main raiders, and it’s a ruling that TDD fully and completely understands, without question. And questions are being asked of the co-operative guild whether any kind of ruling on their guild structure has this in place, akin to our own, or any rule. Needless to say, there is unrest at the prospect of another co-op, and something similar again would definitely be the certain death of the co-operation raiding altogether.
Which is a shame, as the accomplishments both guilds have achieved displays promise, for future instances. And for something as daft as putting Main raiding characters first and alts, and offspecs last (common sense).
We're going to try and rise to Kiddman's challenge, for me personally, I would like to see one day a week for the guild maintaining its own 25 man raid. Whether that’s SSC or a TK run, it doesn’t matter. I would just like to have the confidence that TDD could and can hold its own numbers for that 1 day. And hopefully Tuesday or Thursday would be that day, however IF Thursday doesn’t go well at all, Thursday would be the night for TDD instead.
We moved Karazhan to Saturday and Sunday sign ups. Sunday went well with a full showing of members and I heard it went well. That leaves room for ZA during the week, and I will need to speak to Nyt Ryders Alliance about weekend run's along with TDD's Alts. They are a young established guild, who where leveling together but now have reached the 70 bracket with something more to do. We had a suprising application from their GM to join TDD, and we all supported him by telling him to continue with his guild, and seek a co-op to bring up is level 70's with the knowledge to do Karazhan, rather than guild hop.
On a GM side, I have lots to sort out this week. Folk to poke, and folk to prompt. And guilds to organise and re-establish links and relationships with. I think this will be a busy week indeed.


Bad Ass Badge Loot. 330!

After running through all the BoJ rewards i managed to look up the gear that would improve my current gear. Other than T5, which i would probably need to compare against 330 would be the total cost of badges for everything on my wish list...time to start looking for alternatives i think!!

Wednesday 13 August 2008

Settled

After a long ingame voice chat with our fellow co-op guild, we made it clear that both guilds would continue the co-operation raids together as a team, and remain as 2 individual guilds. Realm did offer a merger, however after a discussion on both guild building up a reputation and developing as guilds, the name above the guild members head, ment more to them. The proposal was a /gdisband and reformation of a guild under a new name. I heard out the proposition, and respected the plan, however I felt that officers and a GM could not speak for the members of the guild who applied to join a guild under its own name, and the history of TDD's continous strides to push on as a group of friends, the same goes for our co-op guild. And with out further worries, but parties logged off content that the relationship between the 2 guilds will get stronger and lasting for the future. Including wotlk.

Wednesday 6 August 2008

Survival of the fittest

I have long wondered how TDD survived its time since its small beginnings. We where humble, a little bruised and dis-heartened during its formation, but we where hardened by our experiences, our troubles and strife's.
First TheBlackRoses, DarkStorm, then back to TheBlackRoses and then to DUTY, and now TDD. A history spanning 3 years under the name of Nadiastorm for all the guilds except Duty, where I was content as the raid leader.
The truth of it is we have survived together as a group of online friends, up against the raid race of other guilds on Khadgar. And kept true to our values of game play and honourable conduct. And now we are on the dawn of something new to us, which is absorbing another guild.
Usually we would ask for applications as a general rule, however if this was to be the case, something quick would need to be done to avoid separation of the co-operation. We have a short listing of those folk, and tonight I will be discussing the details with 2 of their senior members.
Much like the co-op it is an offer of invitation, their GM knows that we are not interested in any merger of any kind due to our past experiences, and being like TDD is, there is no issue of power or dominance with our guild structure, just plain and simple rules a set out as we have learned from experience.
We had quite the chat in TDD last night on ventrillo, and broaching the subject with the guild had me a little on edge as to what their reaction to it would be. On one side of the fence you have 10-13 active players who you know will be equipped for the job of raiding 25 mans, and on the other you have the social intrusion of 1 establish guild social structure intruded by the previous administration of a former guild. How that mix would blend with 10-13 member suddenly introduced into TDD would be a guessing game. However, our experiences with the guild have been positive, however the newer members seem very hard work, as you and I know as all new members can be, to get them up to speed with raid organisation and preparation. It's a lot of patience and instruction, and I don’t think we have the time for that, to go backwards to come forwards again.
TDD is now past the point where we are stuck with Karazhan, and I am looking forward to the guild pushing into ZA more frequently. And at the same time being able to establish its 25 man raiding team too. Again, this is another step in progression as a guild towards something more set in stone than something which is a quick fix to get us by. Confidence is high, and so is morale, and I like to see it continue that way, by what ever means possible if required.

Monday 4 August 2008

Farming for gear

Belt of the Guardian
We all need our goal's in the game. And some time ago while i was enquiring about co-operative raids with some friends online, Soulplaya spoke to me on MSN offering to make the above. A dropped pattern in SSC. I have some of the matts, the rest is just farming gold for 2 nether vortex's which are about 350g each on the AH, and 10 primal Waters, i already have the 5 primal earths & i also need 5 Hardened Adamintite Bars (which are 23g each)
The the rest of the gear is purely Badge rewards (exception of Shades ring) this ring Ring of the Stalwart Protector would be easier to get rather than waiting on chance. If Shade drops the ring, woot, wearing both would be great.
Just the Legs and the boots together is 160 Badges. Plus 60 for the ring and 35 for the cloak..
Looks like it will be a load of daily Heroics, Karazhan runs, and ...god knows what else. But the priority at the moment is the Belt, get that out of the way and then focus on daily heroics. Kahir by far is the quickest character to get this done with the herbing and questing both at the same time.
I may have to smash my offspec healing gear into prismatic shards, which isnt such a bad thing, due to the T4 set and gear i currently have, my healing isnt that bad as a backup and tbh i could do with the room in my own bank, and stick with the offspec DPS gear since i spent alot of time farming for that while i was in Ret Spec. And offspec DPS is my daily quest and questing gear (Looking ahead leveling gear too!)

Thursday 31 July 2008

I finally decide...

So the big debate from now until Mr Lich King is, what will I do?
I played a tank warrior for some guildies in 5 mans, and tbh that didn’t work out too well. But that’s a comparison to the paladin tank which I think is very unfair. If I had to toss two comparisons together and ask which of the 2 classes I would tank with, I would say paladin. Truth of it is, I hate the rage, I hate the taunt limited range and the lack of Crowd AE CC control. But that’s just something I take for granted. Maybe I thought it would be easier to gear being a warrior? Who knows. But hats off to those warriors who are tanks, and I can appriecate how difficult and challenging (and rewarding) it is. For me the paladin has a MASS of utility in tanking, and saved by the button skills. And that works well for me to plug gaps in group configs, CC and healing. The warrior is very focused, and my style is more jack of all trades, ...master of none, and i like that, that appeals to me.
My alt is and will remain my faithfull dancing Kahir. Which is my, "Remove brain and autoshoot and chat" character. As Nad is full 375 enchanting for the guilds benefit, im looking to Kahir as my gatherer, atm with herbalism, and Mining, I do wonder is Jewelcrafting wouldn’t be better? So I guess at the end of this story is, Nadiastorm will be my main original character for WOTLK.

Wednesday 30 July 2008

Raid UI



Theres still some more tweaking to do with the strata of bartender3 for the raid frames, as it stands over the top of any trade or social window that comes up. Bad when you want to check the raid setup, or ready checking..
The finer tweaks would be the casting text size (fishing) and mana bars (as I cant see them) but having the casting bars is good.
SCT and SCTD where added, im not 100% sure I like it, or whether its something I need to setup some more, healing spam is annyong me but I can set the minimum amount. And I'll probably set that for the damage also. Displaying damge above 3k would probably be good for raids, and heroics, so may aswell do the same for healing.

Friday 18 July 2008

Thursday 17 July 2008

Weekly update

Well, since the last blog, i have recently been playing a rogue from level 1.
Gearwise, i have everything but the kitchen sink. Just those things on my To Get List to the left which are Maiden and Shade, with a few badge rewards added in.
The guild has a good base of tanks, both young and well geared. And TDD has new life injected with enthusiastic glee, for the likes of Karazhan and so on. Great!
I have every faith the guild will continue to progress in Kara and gear where required. Hopefully Ragewind will get his gear back from Blizz after a recent hack on his account which left him with nothing.
Tonight is the joint raid with Realm, and i am playing Leni's character to tank the Mage. I have high hopes that we will kill Gruul tonight, and i am trying to be carefull and selective about the players going tonight to make sure we have ample dps to take him to 20% health in 10 grows. And with 2 well geared tanks. Torten and Micke.

My rogues name is Ceilidh, and i am quite enjoying the dps side of things, its a very pure class. And very different from a paladin. However i am still keeping an beedy eye on the WOTLK talents for the prot paladin as they have not yet been published or even hinted at, while other classes have either been leaked, or guessed.
Could this be the end of Nadiastorm for WOTLK?
Over 2 years of playing this game with one character. I dont know which is worse, ...knowing everything there is to know abou a prot paladin, or putting behind a sea of history of playing wow under that name. Anyone and everyone outside of the guild would effectively be cut off. Is that a good thing or bad, who knows. However TDD has always had a history of wandering rogues, leaving for other guilds etc, or asked to leave due to their personaility clashing with others. The GM being a rogue would help releive that, and always give the guild a raiding rogue along with Wega (Jinns brother).

Sunday 13 July 2008

Wednesday 9 July 2008

Rusty

ZA was a good test ground for the increase spell damage from the mace.
The swing is a bit slower than the crystal forge by 0.1 sec, but the aggro generated was very good to keep a hold of things.
The bear boss was ok, but for some reason I felt very rusty last night tanking. But I think I managed ok in the end.
The new gemmed items of avoidance and increased spell damaged over-all worked well and I am quite happy with it. Although I think I may need to adjust my spell rotation with a slower weapon to use Seal of Vengeance instead of Righteousness for boss fights. I had to hold back on using any abilities on the bear boss so I didn’t pull aggro off Jinn before the troll to bear change. But that is a good sign, knowing that with a few abilities I could jump aggro to take aggro back again, if needed, without using taunt.
It's been a while since we have been to ZA but downing the first boss was a good come back, and we had new faces for the eagle boss, and ZA in general. So I think over-all it was a good run to get us back in the ZA saddle.

Friday 4 July 2008

First time tanking Gruul's

With Spell Damage at 330 and wearing a combination of T4 and stamina gear, my aviodance was pretty good. On 15 grows was where the problem became a pain on the healthbar. But this was also down to the amount of dead raiders in the group with all the party bouncing and cave in's on folk. DPS race it is indeed.
For the next attempt i will go for MT again, to begin with i didnt put myself forward to MT him, until later.
I have been reading up on Maintankadin on the fight, and seems that putting the MT's threat as high as possible so the DPS can go FULL out is part of the key to killing Gruul on around 12 grows, on average. So i think a little raid co-ordination and experience put together for the next run will have the cat in the bag so to speak.
It wasnt until 10-13 grows i noticed my health bar start to bounce to 50% and back so if i could maintain a lead until then to allow the DPS to really smash some dps on him, so that by the time he is at 20% health he should be at about 10 grows. Allowing the MT to live a little longer, and having the OT as backup incase the MT gets thumped!
Healthwise, i think my total health is ok to sacrifice some HP for agility & Def gems on my shoulders and gloves, more aviodance is less damage, and it becomes a balance of more HP for less aviodance and vise versa. 18K buffed is fine, 17.5K buffed is also fine.
Some buffs where missing from my regular raid setup, wizard oil and probably sorcerer flasks purely for threat, if i boost my spell damage to 35) or even 400 then that should give ample room for the DPS to go for it. Also in hindsight, some MD's would help too...

Thursday 3 July 2008

Agility Enchants

Enchant Boots - Dexterity +12 Raging Skeleton [Auchenai Crypts]
Enchant Weapon - Greater Agility +20
Exceptional Stats +6 all stats (+6Agility)
+4 stats on Rings (+4 Agility x2)
+12 Agility Leg Armour
Enchant Cloak Greater Agility +12
Enchant Gloves - Superior Agility +15

Never again….for the meantime

I finally managed to get the mace from Magisters Terrace, I have lost count on the amount of times I have gone to that place. But now that I have the mace I have no plans to ever return to that place unless anyone from TDD wants a tank to go there.
I managed to gem up the stoic chest piece with the 2 gems I was looking at, together with a Def and Stam gem for the yellow socket. I managed to play around with various plate and found I could stretch my dodge to over 28% but however my stamina comes down by 1k doing so. Im thinking about using the same gems for the T4 shoulders and the 2 socket belt rather than using the heroic drop belt & shoulders. Compromising slightly on the stamina, and also looking at switching the stam enchant on the boots to agility also. I think with some tweaking and carefull planning I could get my dodge to 30%, block for a paladin would benefit more with lots of strength to reduce the blocked damage but looking at the reduction of blocked damage I am better off with more armour and dodge, while keeping the uncrushability.
Mitigating (passively reducung damage) with armour over 16.9K is 61% reduction. Parry at 16% and dodge at 28% Miss 6.08% gives me 50% chance to aviod any melee hit. While without using the holy shield block 13% to block
And 53% to shield block and aviod crushing blows, reducing damage through armour and block value. And that’s where agility comes in. Agility does add to your armour, and currently adds 406 armour alone.

And that’s the only weak spot tanking wise for mitigating damage for a paladin that I can see, is the block damage & being hit without shield block (Holy Shield) up. Failing to block, your life depends on armour to reduce the damage taken by the hit, and or dodging, parrying, or being completely missed are the others.

Wednesday 2 July 2008

Gems for Chest Armour

Shifting Shadowsong Amethyst

Need 2 of these with the new chest piece. Also looking at yellow socket gems..
I finally managed to get my 75 badges for the stoic chest piece, im releived to be honest to get rid of the PVP gear finally, but the lamanar piece was a good filler until i managed to get something like the badge reward.
Next i guess is the Mace from H MgT. I have done 4 good run's there and still not seen it drop, so im guessing it going to be a little like the Shoulders from Sethek Halls. We had a good run of Karazhan last night, through Opera, Curator and Prince. And got finished around 11:30pm Uk time, which was pushing the time limit on raids a little but i think folk wanted the achievement for the night ..done. 2 wipes on prince down to bad luck, but got him fair and square in the end, with some well timed DI's.

Daily Night tonight, and i think i will pug a H MgT, for the faint hope of that damned mace.

Friday 20 June 2008

UI Development


The Ui is coming along ok, i need to tweak the order of decursive a bit into maybe 2 rows of 12 and 13, or 3 rows of 10, 10 and 5. Buffwatch is ok, but pally power has been recommended to me by a new member of the guild which i might try out. Hopefully it wont suck up too much memory.

Other than that, i cant really complain about the UI, other than adding Clique back into the addons folder.

HKM down


I was so so loooking forward to this raid, working together with Realm. During the week speaking to Morgim and Baconburger, i was excited for TDD's future in 25 man raiding, purely as both guilds, on paper seemed right for each other to raid. I was so proud of both guilds to be able to come together and work a a seemless team, wipe after wipe and still maintain a great attitude.

It was both a shock and an expectation that we did get HKM down. We had made good progress with the pull, the adds (killing one by one) working to the boss himself. And when he went down, it was a testiment to all individuals skill and presence of mind to stay with it, and get the job done. There is great talent across both guilds, and it looks to be a great future ahead of us both for both guilds. Its very exciting!

The after raid chat with Realm was great, Realm sounded very pleased and excited also about the co-operation raid setup, we worked out some final details like raid sign up's and organisation. So the next raid should be alot more smoother.

Great humour, big smiles, and now im always going to be looking forward to Thursday's

Thursday 5 June 2008

Gruul's Flask's

Unstable Flask of the Physician Use: Increases Intellect by 20, Stamina by 30, and healing by up to 44 for 2 hrs.

Unstable Flask of the Bandit Use: Increases Agility by 20, attack power by 40, and Stamina by 30 for 2 hrs.

Unstable Flask of the Elder Use: Increases Intellect by 20, Stamina by 30, and grants 8 mana per 5 sec. for 2 hrs.

Unstable Flask of the Soldier Use: Increases critical strike rating by 20, Strength by 20, and Stamina by 30 for 2 hrs.

Unstable Flask of the Sorcerer Use: Increases Intellect by 20, Stamina by 30, and spell damage and healing by up to 23 for 2 hrs. Coords 54,11

Unstable Flask of the Beast Use: Increases Agility by 20, Strength by 20, and Stamina by 30 for 2 hrs - Coords 29,81

Wednesday 4 June 2008

Magister's Terrace

At first i though this instance was a royal pain in the arse. But go in there with at the very least 1 mage and 1 rogue and a hunter, and your laughing.
Its very class group focused on CC. Pulling groups of 5 and managing to control all of them until the job is done, then move onto the next. And its very individual skill based also, not sure of your class? your fired, especially in a PuG group on Khadgar.
First boss, and last boss are fine to do once you know whats happening, in heroic mode, the last boss hit your spell reflect if your a warrior, or Bubble if your a paladin when the boss bubbles himself and starts casting his 40k pyroblast.

I did manage to get a new trinket Commendation of Kael'thas, after all that work engineering a rocket launcher, all that work and money seems in vain. 57 Stamina and a 35% health dodge bonus of 8%. So its now worth keeping the talent of 30% damage reduction at 35% health...

Im after the Cudgel of Consecration, this has got to be the only upgrade from my blue crystalforged sword for more spell damage, and equal stamina with a +15 blue gem.
I also managed to win Netherforce Chestplate which i gemed up with agility and stam gems. I will try that out after getting the Cudgel, because taking off the PVP chest i drop 20 SD, so you can see how much benefit the crudel will be, for me to spend enchants and gear adjusting elsewhere, not worrying about threat.

Hopefully i will be able to get the T4 Helmet, and dump engineering shortly. And get a gathering skill so i can make some matt grinding money, or even turn herbalist

Total health with the PVP chest is 14.1K unbuffed.

Monday 2 June 2008

Battle of Chest Armour

Panzar'Thar Breastplate
Nightbane
Chestguard of the Stoic Guardian
75 Badges
Chestplate of Stoicism
100 Badges

For a paladin we want (or I want) the backup of knowing i have some type of spell damage added to my gear to fall back on, (without always having to bring wizard Oil as a guarantee of threat). 3 Gems slots in the Stoic Guardian, allows the flexability to add agility and stamina gems outside of the one blue socket, i'd have to check on that, but the 100 badges chest piece is very warrior biased, and only has 1 gem socket. I dont feel overly excited about the stats either, where you could gem up the stoic guardian a little close to it, the main thing missing is +35 spell damage. Nightbanes chest piece would be a good temp work around until i managed to get the stoic guardian.

Friday 30 May 2008

Threat Build

I was plundering a load of forums for prot paladins, and took wee snippets out for spec's, weapons etc. I ended up looking at some talent trees and questioning my own and ended up with this
Ardent Defender, well..i have never tried without it, and 30% less damage...at 35% health. Do i get 30% damage reduction from being hit at 38% health?...i dont think so

Thursday 29 May 2008

Macro Testing

1 Button JotC/JoR Macro
A 1 button macro ( with modifier ) for Judgeing Crusader, then using Seal of Righteousness.
Hold shift ( or any modifier you choose ) to seal and judge Crusader, then it will SoR
/castsequence [modifier:shift] reset=30,target/combat Seal of the Crusader, Judgement; reset=30 Seal of Righteousness, Judgement
Ok, so i was rethinking my spec. One thing that has changed in it was the losing reckoning. When i have time, i am going to test the respec talent tree below. But i took One Handed Weapon Specialization **: (Rank 5) Increases all damage you deal when a one-handed melee weapon is equipped by 5%.Sometimes people are not clear on the tooltip for this talent and tend to think that it only increases white damage. Actually, it increases ALL DAMAGE you do while you have a one handed weapon equipped… meaning spell damage AND white damage, by 5%, making it a 5% overall increase in threat. Definitely worth the points to replace reckoning.
Taking off Improved Seal of the Crusader is a bit of a gamble for me, and will have to see the difference by tesing it

Wednesday 28 May 2008

Nightbane

Now thats a fight for your graphics card huh?
Interesting fight for the paladin having the fear problem. I took notes off others who have tanked nightbane before, using macros for the shields (bubbles) to break the fear, and also using the pvp trinket. Then balancing out the CD of all three, and knowing that fear ward is going on me now and then also.
After a few attempts, we managed to down Nightbane after some shuffling of healers positions ( i heard on Vent) about being out of range when the fear happened. And by then i managed to get a grip of the position, the fear CD and knowing MD from Skoog and Punkgirl where always there to back me up on the landing phase. They all really worked well together, the guild, the raid team.

One thing thats jumped up this last fight, i am loosing aggro.
With spell damage sitting at 265 buffed, the mages, warlocks are all now in the plus 800+ and 900+ spell damage, and the mages have also tweaked their talents for more dps output.
Im still using the crystal forged sword (Blue) from BEM, that Mike gave me 6 months + ago. So im sorely needing to upgrade there, and prehaphs its best i try and get the pvp mace to get me by for now....

Monday 26 May 2008

Paladin UI progress


I cleaned up most of my UI recently. The cooldown count is becoming a pain in the ass, as i am not sure on whether i want a graphic timer, or just the number count down on the skill buttons.

I also need a scrolling combat text to show me damage taken. Thats all im interested in really, the damage i do is not worth seeing.

I will add a raid screenie soon Link to Pala UI thread

update

Well the change has gone ok, and my gear is back up to spec, with a few extras.
I managed to get the shoulders from heroic sethekk halls. So i was finally able to switch the pvp shoulders for pve.
Still looking for a chest piece, and i am thinking about droppping engineering for somehtiing more proffitable, like herbalisim or mining. Who knows. For that to happen i would need the eternium helm from opera. I will look into the t4 helm meantime, and see if thats better or worse for aviodance and tanking overall.

I need a few things still, like the neckky from maiden, and the ring from shade. So we'll see what happens next week

Wednesday 14 May 2008

Tuesday 13 May 2008

Pecking Order

When I respecced back to tank spec, I looked at the past history of my guilds tanks.
We spread the loot evenly, tanks left for other guilds, and then left us in a yoyo loop of climbing back up a hill. We spent a lot of energy gearing ourselves, and sharing the chance of loot with new members of the guild. Only to end up by ourselves again after a few months of progress.
I remember passing on tank gear previously for tanks who are no longer in TDD, and question myself as to why I didn’t even roll for it. Well..hindsight! And that bugged me a lot on the night I decided to respec back to protection. "Was it going to be worth it?"
I have always tanked for TDD, im the GM of the guild, and I have no ambitions to move onto another raiding guild and catch the welfare epic train of "hold on tight this will be a quick run" mode, no thanks, why take my enjoyment of achievement out of the game? I enjoy building a team, helping run a team, and creating an environment where people enjoy working together, and seeing it. That right there is my love of the game.
Something had to change, something had to be more pointed towards those of the guild that remained after the departure of others from TDD. And to recruit new folk to repeat the same process, just puts a sickening taste in my mouth. And so came the pecking order loot system. I wouldn’t want to see loot from bosses that would help us progress a little further in ZA, pass to someone new to the guild compared to a member who has been with us for 1 year + who says "Its ok mate, we can roll for it" and lose, then see them walk out the door for a better offer from a large guild. TDD isnt a big guild and cannot afford the luxury of giving away tools to help it up the chain of raid progression.

That might be a little hard core and in your face, but the day you have to console a guild of 30 people, and encorage them repeatedly to continue on, to keep trying, and keep their hopes up, then you'll have a valid arguement or point of view to say whether it is fair or not.

The DKP system. Well that would work, or wouldnt it? Being a small casual guild that raids, most of its members having RL responsibilities would'nt be able to gain DKP at the same rate as a player who had no outside responisbilities, in a sense, the raider. On one hand you have dedicated members of your guild, and on the other hand you have dedicated raiders looking for progress. And im a little stuck on the system of choice which would be fairer for our small guild. What system would work, a Zero DKP system? im unsure.

However, this looks interesting http://code.google.com/p/epgp/

Friday 9 May 2008

Spoiled..

Well it didnt last long. And i am back to protection spec by practical demand of the guilds progress and available tanks online. It was sweet...but short.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=sVVZVhxIx0zggqt

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=sZVhxIx0zMgqtVbx

I decided to move my talents from the previous spec, to the above

Thursday 8 May 2008

Not sure how to broach this subject without contradicting myself.

I have added an arena chest piece to my to get list...Sacrales asked if i was interested in giving the arena a go, and tbh i had alot of fun. played 10, lost 1, but this was completely new to us. The alternative is the cheaper one at 1,630 arena points, being the Merciless Gladiator's Scaled Chestpiece

The chest piece looks like the best thing i can get pre BT, if im not including a boss i cant remember the name of that has a chest piece with more hit rating on it.

AP is up to 1900+ after i respecced to include improved might, and some additional talents in the ret tree. And so far the difference has been very noticable, both in PVP and PVE.

We have ZA tonight, and hope to see what difference is made with the changes made so far..

Friday 2 May 2008

To improve..

Vindicator's Scaled Bracers 17850 20WSG *Done*
Vindicator's Scaled Belt 17850 40 AB

These two items alone improve the strength stats on Nad alone, bracer's being first as my currents bracers have no strength at all, other than the +12 enchant

Wednesday 30 April 2008

Paladin Macro's

Divine Intervention
/target Tem
/raid <<DI casted on Tem>>
/cast divine intervention


SoC Macro
/cast judgement
/stopcasting
/cast Seal of Command

Crusader Strike & Avenging Wrath
/cast Crusader Strike
/stopcasting
/cast Avenging Wrath

Tuesday 29 April 2008

PVE Vs PVP Gear

Other than the Gladiator's Great sword…
I had a look through all the available gear that MaxDPS.coom suggested as available gear pre-Gruul's and Co. And after having a beer and a chat with (Vitharr) http://renvik.blogspot.com, with tips on hit rating and recommended gear. It looks to me that the PVP gear very much lacks what is needed in PVE, that important Hit Rating cap. Thanks :)

Im still a little green behind the ears with it all but I think im getting there. I will be respeccing to get rid of the Kings, and getting improved Might, and will have a search through a few ret paladin profiles on armoury, for the most common talent build. Preferably PVE geared, and progressed.

I swapped out the Glad Scaled leg guards, and put up Vanquisher's Legplates as the PVE equivalent from Mech & Nightbane for the boots, pretty much covers the bottom half of Nad. Then there's the red belt that Blacksmiths can make, and I have a feeling HebrewHammer is looking to buy the recipe for, as he was asking for 600g from the guild bank. Not sure if I can justify 600g for a limited amount of classes, however Hebrew would make quite a few no doubt which leni could sell on the AH to return the 600g. But i dont think it is that pattern at all...i will have to wait and find out.

Meanwhile I managed to get 32 badges of EOTS. It was good fun, EOTS is much better than AB and WSG. I have enough badges of AV to buy the current Great Sword, and Sin from Thunderhorn recommends that I wait for PVP gear in a months time which will be the current seasons gear, ready and available for BG honor. So meantime, I will just bank up some badges and had them in for concerted efforts, for the 350 honor reward each turn in to pump my existing honor up for the current seasons great sword.

Thursday 24 April 2008

Nightbane


This was just plain and simple fun. Although there were some specific tactics, it was pretty much watch where you are, when to hit, and when not to. After we figured out what was happening around us, it was fairly easy to do.

Shame no plate boots dropped, but i didnt care about items tonight, i was just glad we got Nightbane down.

Oh, and as you can see, the UI is coming along nicely... I have added, ReadyCheck Announcer, Decursive and CastYeller. Also to come is a /roll addon for Loot, and a Mini map addon tidyup addon.

One off the list

Choker of Vile Intent
We had a sweet run through Kara last night, and got the 4 bosses down leading to Curator. Felt good to get one of the To Get Items off the list quickly, and felt like some progress was being made.
I was planning on doing some EOTS tonight, but Nightbane and Curator are on the cards tonight, and TDD is lacking a Raid Leader for the night. Although Clam will be there to assist.
I'll be needing the badges anyway, for buying a Primal Nether for the Furious Gizmatic Goggles which are the more likey item i will get before anything else.
Im debating currently whether to roll on the boots Nightbane drops, as it is on the top of the Ret DPS table for my available gear Ironstriders of Urgency
i would be a fool not to

Wednesday 23 April 2008

Warsong..

Probably the worst BG in my memory since before TBC. I was daunting the idea of going here, after accepting the BG daily, but i was suprised to see the BG map show where both flags where at any time, even when the horde had the alliance one (Shift + M). I remember timeless fights of waiting ages to find the end of the stale mate of both sides having the flags. And tbh, i got my butt handed back to me very quickly on my first 10 minutes of play, until i figured out my key bindings and got a rythmn of what i was doing in a fight.
I had trouble logging on last night. It might have been my internet connection, but i couldnt log in on my main charcter at all. Eventually around 10PM UK time, i was able to, so 2 rounds of WSG for the daily win and i was happy.
Tonight i have a Karazhan run, so hopefully everything will run smoothly and we'll get some badges !!

Tuesday 22 April 2008

To Get

I have re-done my To Get List, as as you can see its pretty much PVP focused, with some craftables and Badge of Justice rewards. Im not overly impressed with the time it will take to get the gear, or the alternative of rolling for gear in Kara or other places, but there are Badge rewards that i DO want to take advantage of. But i think it will be more rewarding in the end, splitting up the gear from PVP, Craftable, and Badge rewards.

I needed some direction to head for, as this is something new to me. Having to find alternative sources of gear outside of PVE to fit into a raid group. And so far its easier to jump into a BG for 20 mins rather than 1 hour in an instance getting to the end for the hope that something of use might drop at the end... The BG dailies..OMG thank you blizz, a quick and easy way to get some cash at the same time and not having to move anywhere, or fight for mobs to kill in the new patch island. And this is probably prehaphs where folk have been talking about wellfare epics, and i can see from a certain point of view how that works out. So i agree with those opinions, and dis-agree with a certain amount of immediate bias to my gear chasing...if you get my point?

Monday 21 April 2008

Where to start

I managed to re-gem, and re-enchant my existing tanking gear to DPS...as well as i could have done. But that compromised between the starter gear i got in the begining, and the overall balance of dps and crit, i didnt suffer too much though..
Edit

Wednesday 16 April 2008

Time Out


Currently on holiday, but i have been working on my UI. Creating my own compliation..
There's still some work to do, and as you can see im getting into BG as much as i can to climb the honor tree.

I managed to get my scaled gloves and enchanted them asap. It has been really good to just sit back, login for 15 mins do a BG and log out again without any fuss. Then relogging maybe an hour or so later and do the same over. Ofc, soicalising with the guild, and enchanting the odd gear in SW Keep for guildies is fine.

The UI so far has, Pitpull, Bartender3, Autobar, PerfectRaid, Prat (chat), Cellular and Buffwatch.

I will need to choose between DeadlyBossMods or BigWigs.. and some sort of Decurse Addon...


and a DPS meter somewhere

Friday 11 April 2008

Chasing the Table - Part II

Karazhan Curator, Shade and Chess
Included is my screenshot of the Burnt Cherry Lite UI i am currently reviewing, the crit of 1240 white damage, as you can see is hardly something that stands out.
For the first half of Karazhan i was fighting for the 2nd & 3rd place upto this point where the worms started after Curator and i started falling behind.. To get this far on the starter pvp blue crusader gear isnt bad at all, however i think beyond Shade the gear will show in dps. And feel i might be holding up the raid's progress until i get better gear. However, BeIMBA shows that the gear is good enough to see Kara through, and if i notice my DPS falling rapidly, i will have to consider stepping out quickly, to get someone else in there to get TDD back on track.
You can see Leni's (FireMage) 900+ spell damage (The Blue bar on the DPS table on the bottom right) and Xadel (Rogue) at the top of the table. Momochi (Rogue) and Demmonia (Warlock) are relatively level geared as my character, so you can see roughly where i stand in all of them.
Buffed with Kings and Might my AP was 1940, with Flask of Relentless Assault & Hit Rating food buff.
The plan for tonight will be to put my ex-tanking enchanted belt and bracers on, and my upgraded leg armour from SL

Thursday 10 April 2008

Chasing the Table

Going from racing up the threat meter, with an almost unlimited supply of mana from spritual atonement from being healed. The Ret paladin feels like it depends on a few factors of talent points in the right place, and a mana pot or two with Seal of Wisdom on a target (for long fights)
For the first time i installed a DPS meter, mainly to gauge where i come in the raid group when it comes to dishing out the white and yellow. And where i fit in with this new role within a raid. Turns out im not too bad fighting for 3rd and 4th place over-all. And in blues (Body Armour) thats not bad at all, however my RL partner has a firemage decked in Purples and tailored spell strike gear, and this will be the true gauge of where i am. This will be tonight, along with the rest of the guilds main DPS'ers. The core of TDD's Purple parade.
For the meantime i am getting used to the Ret style of play. My problem is getting into the fight quick enough with the rogue who seems to be getting a head start on DPS when the fight starts, handy to have stealth, but i seem to be keeping up with Xadel and Momochi being under 10k over-all of their damage. We've had a problem with KTM, and my biggest fear is pulling aggro from hitting too hard, too soon, and most of this week we have had to play things by feel where we are in relation to threat.
We have Curator, Shade and Chess tonight, so let's see where this Ex Protection paladin fits in to a 10 man.

Addons - UI for a Ret Paladin






Im very picky when it comes to UI's, and especially compliations. I can never leave someone's compliation alone, because i always find something missing, or not quite right for me and end up removing or adding along the way. ..... So im fussy.
I have had UI's which fill up my screen before, that has you actually moving your head to try and look around behind them to see whats going on, these days, i am looking for nothing...as little, and as neat as you can make it, please. And also, as little memory usuage as you can please Sir?! :D
Im not good at making my own UI, but if there is a good base to work from a complated UI, i can add and tweak, then thats the one for me....
I have 1GB RAM, 2.3Ghz CPU and 1024 x768 screen


The Top 3





i selected are the following from my searches
Raynes Burnt Black Cherry UI 12.33 MB there is a lite version Here 13.38 MB
Delsim's Minimal heavy-keybinder UI 5.90 MB
Sero UI v2.2 42.22 MB!!
Worth mentioning i use, Clique, KTM, Onebag, Cellular, Prat and Decursive

First I tested Raynes Lite Burnt Black Cherry UI version first, and the test ground was (Karazhan) Moroes and Opera. Size: 13.38 MB
**Review** - there's nothing light about it...






Raiding Features Omen2 wasnt working so i had to add KTM, and i had no record or display of players buffs so i was asking folk to remind me when they expired.
The colouring can be difficult for the buff bars, im not sure what i can do about that, maybe tweaking it and adding buff symbols so i can identify them better. (I buff and Debuff myself alot in fight) The damage meter was easy to move and read also. Im used to using Buffwatch, and may have to add this in to cover for the re-buffs i need to do in a raid. 6/10 i dont think the lite version comes with Raid options and features






Combat The scrolling combat text was a little small for me, and i didnt notice what damage i was doing at all really. I may just switch that addon off and go back to standard. The cooldown timers where small, and looked like the default grey coulnt down, but the scrolling combat text flashed a red notifcation when an ability was ready. 8/10 needs a tweak to read, but very nice features






Overall look and feel of the UI was very tidy, and easy to look at. This addon was designed for resolutions probably higher than mine, but a small tweak was all that was needed using the /rock menu. to resize the fonts for my 1024 x768 screen, 8/10 because of the buff colouring.






Performance It did suck alot of memory, and took my FPS down to an average of 10-15 fps, but credit to it i didnt lag on the steps of Moroes for the AE fights. 8/10






Overall Score: 8/10 purely for the lack of raiding features for buffing, but these could be added, but at 13MB..would i want to?






Potential Score: 8/10 Could i mod it to suit a ret pala?





Following reviews to come..





Raynes Burnt Black Cherry UI 12.33MB




Update 23/04/08



I decided to make my own compliation, and will probably at some time in the future upload it for general download from sites like wowinterface.com or the others.. The main addons are Pitbull Bartender3 Autobar KTM PerfectRaid Prat2 (Chat) Cellular Buffwatch



I was playing around with alot of UI compliations, then decided that alot of them had additional crap that i did not need, or they where the wrong colour etc etc and the list goes on.. So i decided to pick out the best addons from the compliations and modified the look of them to suit me. Its still a work in progress, but here is a screenie





24/04/08




With the addition of Buffwatch and BigWigs, which i tried out last night, the UI seems to be filling in quite well. Without cluttering the display, everything still..is pretty much as you see above, i will try and get an action pic sometime soon


Update 28/05/08

With the addition of Omen2, Autobar, and ORA2 for raiding, the rest of the addons are pretty much the same. I am undecided in what cooldown counter to use though, whether it is a number count down on the buttons, or something else that graphically shows skills being ready..


Perfect raid takes over when the party is changed to raid



Also checking SimpleRaidTargetIcons


20/06/08


The Ui is coming along ok, i need to tweak the order of decursive a bit into maybe 2 rows of 12 and 13, or 3 rows of 10, 10 and 5. Buffwatch is ok, but pally power has been recommended to me by a new member of the guild which i might try out. Hopefully it wont suck up too much memory.
Other than that, i cant really complain about the UI, other than adding Clique back into the addons folder.

Monday 7 April 2008

The changes

The switch to Ret wasnt as painfull as i thought it could have been.
With patch 2.4 the blue Crusader's Scaled Battlegear start pvp set for the dps paladin was cheap enough to buy the full kit, and gem up.
Took a moment to get my head arround what gems to put into the slots, and what attributes i should be looking for. Turns out its Strength (1 Str = 2 AP)
For my birthday i was lucky to get Despair for helping out in DPS for the guild Karazhan run. Which was a nice gift from the game. Before the raid i raised a ticket to see if i could switch my Lamaller PVP gear to Scaled, Gm was helpfull enough but i couldnt get it swapped due to the time period between me getting the gear and the timing of the request, shame, but the question "is their anything else i can help?" well...i had to say, its my birthday so a shout out would be nice. The response wasnt a bot :D and i was stood in Karazhan, so maybe... who can tell, and who will ever know...
Looking at getting Bloodlust Brooch and Hourglass of the Unraveller as trinkets next, this should'nt take too long to do,.
Meantime, crafting wise i will be looking to engineer some Furious Gizmatic Goggles so i'll have to start saving doing dailies etc.

Top of the list
Badges and BM
Dailies & PVP (Slow build up of honor)
Drop Kings Buff for Improved Might

Raiding and BG
Oddly i thought i would be seriously below par with the DPS table, i was so unprepared in fact..i didnt even install a dps meter, and got reports from my guild on how well i was doing or not. It worked out i was ok. Coming third after Opera and Maiden in Karazhan.
In AV, it wasnt that bad either, overall averge per game i was within the top 7, not bad for blues & a few epics.

Friday 4 April 2008

Protection to Retribution

I decided to re-instate my blog on blogspot.

My Current Protection Spec

Converting to Retribution 5/11/45

When i began this game i had no idea what a tank was, or what one was used for. I mainly multi tasked between healing a raid on Crossroads and being hard to kill at Astranaar.
As time went on i lost focus in the game as i didnt know what my class was supposed to do, and at level 40-45 i had a crisis of class and character. This was before TBC came out, and Phantas Magoria where working on AQ40 etc etc. There have been many many time i have sat and thought "I should have rolled a warrior!" After TBC came out, i had a bit more uber behind the paladin tank, and a niche of its own. There are things i can do as a paladin a warrior cannot, and some thing a warrior can do, and i cannot... And there lies the compromise. And whether i am happy with that compromise or not, is always a 50/50 sway eitherside, when ever i doubt the paladins available tanking abilities.
The doubt is not about the paladin over all, but more to do with my own thoughts about what i would like to play as a tank, and what tools i would prefer to have as a tank to be able to do what *i* would prefer to do when tanking. The only way i will know the difference to is bring up a warrior and tank with it, to make a comparison between the warrior and paladin, side by side. Its Rage Vs Mana.
My heart ache lies with the availabel gear for the paladin. Its main flaw is theire weapon (Swords) no availablity for a gun with huge stamina, this is replaced by a libram, which adds block and thats it. Where as with a warrior only needs to be concerned with a fast weapon with stamina and aviodance stats like dodge parry and block added to their weapon, paladins have a lean towards spell damage on theirs, and thats a huge sacrifice to have considering other tanking weapons out their without spell damage, there is nothing really specific for a Tank paladin to choose from, other than stealing a Mage/Warlock sword from the drop table. I will try to see if using a warrior tanking weapon seriously reduces my threat or not, but for the meantime, im left hoping Blizzard adds a specific tanking weapon upgrade for the paladin.

Patch 2.4 added some good things with the new faction for paladin tanks. But it wasnt something i was going to scream in excitement about, i was more excited about the 2 handed weapons available. One over riding thought jumps at me when ever i see gear like this is, when is this new expansion coming out? And all the while all this work for tanking gear is squashed on the first day of release as a tank questing is a joke. Wrath is drawing closer and closer, and yes, it would be good to see some more of Karazhan etc, but to be honest about it all, i am not really interested in the progress of the game in instances, but more on the enjoyment of my own character that i have played for 2+ years, and as a tank, im sorry, i starting to lose interest in the tanking role over-all. I had thought about re-rolling another character, but the thought of grinding through all that rep and gear over agian pains me. It really does just put me off. HOwever the paladin can swap between Healer, Tank and DPS.

I always thought and got the impression that Ret paladins where a joke "So to speak". Due to alot of people complaining about the spec being broken and half finished. I have never really tried it out at max levelmyself, and whether i have had the opportunity to or not has never really come about. So im going to try it out, and see for myself and experience it with my own character, geared as recommended by the clever folk on several websites...

I'm still protection atm, and plan to get enough ahead in gear to rival my protection spec, and then make the swap and see how much the game changes, to keep my interest, or not.