The Stoic Guardian

Unstick Me!

2008-11-21T08:20:00.002-07:00

If I get stuck on a low-hanging branch, crack in the sidewalk, wooden plank, tiki torch, green leafy plant, small stone, snow mound, shallow staircase, hidden vine, curb or barricade one more time I am really, really going to freak out.

Leveling Up, Avoidance Down

2008-11-20T11:23:00.005-07:00

As a tank leveling in Northrend I have watched my glorious pre-expansion dodge and block statistics dwindle to almost unthinkable numbers. When this happens the first reaction is to immediately feel that you are somehow doing something wrong as you replace gear or that you have dramatically misunderstood the new gear itemization. Don't worry - things are fine. Gear in Northrend for a tank, at least pre-raid gear, is very high on defense rating and pretty low on pure avoidance or block rating. Be sure you are stacking defense rating, stamina and strength.

Uncritability
As a tank our first priority is to attain uncritability - especially at the level cap. This means at level 80 you must have 540 defense. While leveling it is not absolutely essential to be uncritable but it is a goal that a tank really should be reaching for at each level of progression. Having this goal will make your gear choices easier and will help you avoid falling massivly short on defense when you do reach level 80. To be uncritable at each level this is what to shoot for:

Level 71: 495 Defense
Level 72: 500 Defense
Level 73: 505 Defense
Level 74: 510 Defense
Level 75: 515 Defense
Level 76: 520 Defense
Level 77: 525 Defense
Level 78: 530 Defense
Level 79: 535 Defense
Level 80: 540 Defense

I just hit level 75 late last night and I am currently sitting at 508 defense so you can see that I am already behind the curve a bit and need to do some work.

My New Gear
Here is some of the new tanking gear I have picked up recently that has replaced my previous epics. All of these are either quest rewards or items that I crafted. Some of these were outright upgrades and some were sidegrades. I found myself switching to some of the new gear even if it wasn't a huge upgrade simply because I love the aesthetic of Northrend gear.

The Holy Grail
As soon as any tank reaches level 74 the first priority must be picking up your new tanking weapon. The quest Wanted: Ragemane's Flipper rewards a choice of some amazing tanking weapons that will surely replace any weapon you had previously. I wouldn't be suprised if these weapons wouldn't last until level 80. They are that good.

Don't you just love those names! I took the axe for the extra defense and it just looks amazing. The hammer is also a good choice but I would recommend avoiding the sword as it does not have any defense on it.

A New Home, A New Family

2008-11-18T08:01:00.004-07:00

Many of you that have been following this blog since I began writing will be familiar with both my joys and failures as a guild master of first Mors Celeris and then Blackthorn. I enjoyed my time as a guild leader and I feel that I helped many people become successful and have fun in the game and I certainly met some very good friends along the way. Recent events however have forced me to question my commitment and reasons for leading a guild and in fact even remaining in Blackthorn. I needed to get back to basics.

After serious consideration and thought I disbanded guild Blackthorn and have joined the fantastic guild Al'shar lo Dor'ano. I met many member of the Al'shar while raiding toward the end of The Burning Crusade and they were always, without exception, people that I respected and wanted to spend time with in-game.

Al'shar lo Dor'ano is a role-playing guild which is something I have been wanting to dive back into. Being able to remain in character and enjoy the game as an immersive social experience is something I really wanted and needed. I'm also looking forward to raiding with the Al'shar. They are a group of very committed players that like to progress but not at the expense of fun. It really is a perfect fit for me and they seemed happy to have me join their ranks.

Wish me luck in my new home...

Astonishing!

2008-11-17T09:31:00.015-07:00

I am speechless from this last weekend of playing Wrath of the Lich King. I have not had such an enjoyable time playing World of Warcraft for an extremely long time. The environment is absolutely gorgeous and the game lore has been so well integrated into the epic quest chains that I feel like I am reading a novel that I cannot put down. Congratulations and thank you Blizzard.

Gothyelk is currently halfway through level 73. Here are some photographs from his adventures over the weekend:

Get those Pets on that Boat!

2008-11-13T08:16:00.009-07:00

I have secured passage for myself and four pets aboard the boat to Northrend. Some of these pets I am very happy with and, well, some not so much.

Tolstoy

Tolstoy has been with me since level 15 when I made the long and dangerous journey to the Barrens to tame him. He has been my partner and friend through every dungeon and quest. He has been a loyal killing machine, keeping me safe when I got in over my head and making me look good in raids. Tolstoy will always be with me - this is the pet I identify with. In Northrend Tolstoy will be called on to provide damage (and companionship) in dungeons and raids.

Tiberius

I have always admired the strength and courage of the gorilla in the wild and was often tempted to tame one despite their weaknesses as pets. With the changes recently however the gorilla became a very viable tanking and soloing pet. I found this massive silver back on an island off the coast of Stranglethorn Vale. Tiberius will be my primary questing companion in Northrend.

Kafka

Kafka is an experiment. I starting getting into PvP near the end of Burning Crusade and really enjoyed it. Battlegrounds were a hoot and I really began enjoying the challenges of the arenas as a hunter. The spider has a very nice PvP oriented ability called Web that will immobilize its target for four seconds -- keeping those nasty rogues and warriors off me. I have been tempted however to try a nice hyena in this spot instead. The hyena suits my personality a bit more than the spider and I'm not sure I want another manual-cast special ability to worry about during a frantic arena match.

Fáfnir

I don't know what to say about this beautiful creature. Tracking and taming this rare beast was an adventure I will never forget, but in reality Fáfnir never leaves the stable. I am not sure what role he can fill other than looking gorgeous flapping by my side. I'm also not to keen on flying creatures for some reason (being a dwarf I need things low to the ground). I imagine at some point in the very near future Fáfnir will be released back into the wild.

That leaves me one empty stable slot at the moment that I plan on filling with a Rhino once I arrive in Northrend later today.

Reputation Rewards for Paladin Tanks and Hunters in WotLK

2008-11-11T13:39:00.023-07:00

I really enjoy the various factions that we encounter in the game, and if you are anything like me you want to know well in advance which faction have the rewards for the classes you play. I've compiled this list of faction rewards for paladin tanks and hunters that we will find in the upcoming Wrath of the Lich King expansion. Depending on your current gear level not all of these will be upgrades. The biggest thing to know here is where to get your appropriate head and shoulder enchants.

Reputation Rewards for Paladin Tanks

Argent Crusade
Quartermaster: Veteran Crusader Aliocha Segard, Icecrown
- Special Issue Legplates
- Arcanum of the Stalwart Protector

Frenzyheart Tribe
Quartermaster: Tanak, Frenzy Heart Hill in Sholazar Basin
- Giant-Sized Gauntlets

The Kalu'ak
Quartermaster: Tanaika, Moa'Ki Harbor in Dragonblight
- Ivory-Reinforced Chestguard

Kirin Tor
Quartermaster: Archmage Alvareaux, Violet Citadel in Dalaran
- Fireproven Gauntlents

Knights of the Ebon Blade
Quartermaster: Duchess Mynx, Shadow Vault in Icecrown
- Toxin-Tempered Sabatons

The Oracles
Quartermaster: Geen, Sholazar Basin
- Glimmershell Shoulder Protectors

Sons of Hodir
Quartermaster: Lillehoff, Dun Niffelem in The Storm Peaks
- Lesser Inscription of the Pinnacle
- Greater Inscription of the Pinnacle

The Wyrmrest Accord
Quartermaster: Cielstrasza, top of the Wyrmrest Temple in Dragonblight
- Cloak of Peaceful Resolutions
- Breastplate of the Solemn Council
- Sabatons of Draconic Vigor

Reputation Rewards for Hunters

Argent Crusade
Quartermaster: Veteran Crusader Aliocha Segard, Icecrown
- Zombie Sweeper Shotgun
- Polished Regimental Hauberk

The Kalu'ak
Quartermaster: Tanaika, Moa'Ki Harbor in Dragonblight
- Cuttlefish Scale Breastplate
- Pattern: Dragonscale Ammo Pouch
- Traditional Flensing Knife
- Whale-Stick Harpoon

Kirin Tor
Quartermaster: Archmage Alvareaux, Violet Citadel in Dalaran
- Lightblade Rivener
- Spaulders of Grounded Lightning
- Boots of Twinkling Stars

Knights of the Ebon Blade
Quartermaster: Duchess Mynx, Shadow Vault in Icecrown
- Pattern: Nerubian Reinforced Quiver
- Arcanum of Torment
- Spaulders of the Black Arrow

The Oracles
Quartermaster: Geen, Sholazar Basin
- Toothslice Helm
- Oracle Talisman of Ablution

Sons of Hodir
Quartermaster: Lillehoff, Dun Niffelem in The Storm Peaks
- Giant Ring Belt
- Broken Stalactite
- Stactite Chopper
- Lesser Inscription of the Axe
- Greater Inscription of the Axe

The Wyrmrest Accord
Quartermaster: Cielstrasza, top of the Wyrmrest Temple in Dragonblight
- Fang of Truth

The Suspension of Disbelief

2008-11-11T08:40:00.006-07:00

Suspension of disbelief or "willing suspension of disbelief" is an aesthetic theory intended to characterize people's relationships to art. It refers to the willingness of a person to accept as true the premises of a work of fiction, even if they are fantastic or impossible. It also refers to the willingness of the audience to overlook the limitations of a medium, so that these do not interfere with the acceptance of those premises. The state is arguably an essential element when experiencing any drama or work of fiction. We may know very well that we are watching an actor or looking at marks on paper, but we willfully accept them as real in order to fully experience what the artist is attempting to convey.

This suspension of disbelief is a critical component to the success of MMOs like World of Warcraft. Players readily immerse themselves in a world of magic and dragons that they accept as real, at least for a time, in exchange for entertainment and the substitution of the physical reality of our world for something fantastical. It is escapism and we all do it when we read a novel, go to the movies or play Warcraft. A problem arises however when this illusion is broken and one can no longer maintain the suspension of disbelief.

When I am playing World of Warcraft there are very few things that are more irritating and frustrating than something happening in the game that shatters the illusion and brings the real world crashing down around my head. Generally I find there are two primary reasons for me breaking my suspension of disbelief: other players and the game itself.

The characters one chooses to interact with in the game has a large impact on the degree to which one can maintain this suspension of disbelief. Guild members and friends can either be a fantastic catalyst for an immersive game experience (i.e role playing) or they can destroy any notion of escapism with a few words. A guild chat channel that is filled with discussion about girlfriend troubles, descriptions of a visit to the nail salon or stories about a terrible boss at work are a sure way to shatter the illusion that many of us strive to maintain. Instead of a group of adventurers wielding swords and magic the guild has become a group of people sitting around computers and desks in uncomfortable chairs chatting about real life. Boring. I can get that anywhere.

Blizzard, which is the second major party in this tacit agreement, also has the power to destroy our suspension of disbelief. This became obvious to me again last night when the Scourge began invading Stormwind harbor. Calls to arms were made, role-playing was at epic levels and we rallied around the king in the hopes of pushing back the mighty armies of the Lich King himself. Instead, we were met with insane levels of server lag and a game that was impossible to play. These world events are a huge opportunity for enjoyment, role-playing and immersion but when technical difficulties intervene we are back in the real world worrying about internet connections, frames-per-second and that new computer we wish we had purchased when we had more money. Shame on Blizzard for not being prepared and for breaking our agreement to suspend disbelief.

I only hope that when I begin my adventures in Northrend later this week I can do so without reality interfering.

Where in the World?

2008-11-10T09:07:00.003-07:00

"Where in the World?" is a weekly feature in which I will post a screenshot from some beautiful location in Azeroth or Outland. I invite my readers to guess the location of the shot. I will be moving this feature to Sunday's starting next week.

Some New Bling and Paladin Threat

2008-11-07T13:48:00.007-07:00

I had some more fun in Black Temple last night running with Emerald Raiders. It was a fresh run and after about three hours we had downed everything up to and including the Reliquary of Souls. It was a painless run and I was seeing some new-content-for-me. I main tanked everything and I was having a blast (I still need something to tell me when Judgment and Hammer of the Righteous are available). While I am not really in there for the loot at this point I did pick up the very sexy Band of the Abyssal Lord from Supremus. We are heading back tonight to finish the clear and hopefully get some of the gorgeous tier 6 paladin gear just becasue I want to look our very best on the boat to Northrend.

I know many paladins over at Maintankadin are reporting a decrease in threat since the retribution nerf (it impacted our seals and judgments as well) but I have not seen it. I am also of the opinion, contrary to widely held opinion, that paladin threat output is actually greater than that of warriors at this point. On each of the raids I have run since the 3.0 patch I have far exceeded the threat of warriors in comparable gear. During our raid last night the warrior was going to tank Reliquary of Souls during pahse two to spell reflect Deaden. I laid off on my rotation, didn't use cooldowns as soon as they were up and I still pulled aggro off the warrior very quickly. I felt bad and apologized but there was nothing I could do unless I just stood there. It is a very fun and exciting time to be a tanking paladin.

Here is the WWS report from last night for anybody that is interested in looking at these types of things.

Tonight's Black Temple run will be my final raid before the expansion is released. Despite all of my excitement it is a little sad to realize that this really is it and we are all moving on.

Getting Them Both to Level 80

2008-11-06T11:51:00.003-07:00

Lassirra over at The Hunter's Mark made a great post a few days ago about a topic I have been thinking a lot about recently: mains and alts. If somebody asked me who my main character was I would have to answer Gothyelk, my protection paladin. He has been with me since the beginning. He has seen it all, survived all the pugs and guild drama and has achieved far more than any of my other characters. He has run all of the old world dungeons with the same four friends while we were allleveling together. To me, a main isn't so much abuot which character has the best gear or which character can get me into the highest level raids. My main is and will always be the character with whom I have the most shared memories.

But I have also fallen deeply in love with the hunter class. The mix of complexity and simplicity, the relationship with my pets, the pride in chain trapping while still leading the raid in damage -- all of this and more is what keeps me playing my hunter while other alts have either stalled or have died completly. There have been many times where my adoration for Cunobelinuis may have surpassd that for Gothyelk, but it was never an issue. Both are well geared 70s and I play them both regularly.

But what happens when the expansion comes? Many people are switching mains but I dont want to do that. I want to have two mains -- I want to level them both to 80 and get them both raiding and enjoying the new world together. But of course there is a problem with this plan, by leveling them both I slow down my leveling and this is what has me distraught as we near the launch of Wrath of the Lich King.

Tanking is fairly competitive -- there just are not that many spots in a raid for tanks, usually just one or two and sometimes a third. This means that if I plan to get raiding when I hit 80 with Gothyelk then he needs to be on the cutting edge of gear and ready to go quickly or he will get left behind, not only by tanks in other guilds but perhaps by tanks in my own guild as well who have focused on a single character.

Cuno will not be abandoned completely until Goth hits level 80, but I think he will need to take a backseat while the paladin gets the majority of my attention. This makes me a little sad and I know Cuno isn't happy about it...

The Failing of a Guild Merger

2008-11-05T08:01:00.006-07:00

On June 12th of this year my former guild Mors Celeris merged with the guild Vox Draconis to form Blackthorn. Yesterday that merger crumbled in my hands and I am left holding a guild that needs a lot of care and support.

It all began a couple of months ago when the former GM of Vox and co-leader of Blackthorn suddenly declared that he and his wife would no longer be playing the game. They were quitting cold-turkey. The reason given publicly was that they had some real-life issues to take care of -- and while this may have contributed to them leaving it was not entirely true. The truth was that they never actually quit the game, they both left the guild and spent lots of time playing the WotLK beta and planning to rebuild their former guild. Many former Vox members quit Blackthorn soon after this - it was not a coincidence. It was planned.

But it wasn't the end of the world. We had a strong guild with good members and many of the former Vox officers were still officers in Blackthorn. We would march on and survive despite the losses.

Yesterday however it all went pear-shaped. I tried to access our guild web site to grab some important information but instead I got a 404-page not found error. This former co-GM, which had control over our site, had taken our site down without telling me or without working out a way to transfer control of it to us. With a little digging I did find the brand new Vox Draconis web site up and running and using a lot of content that I had written. I also found a knife in my back. On the site were listed all of the new Vox Draconis guild officers -- well, three of them were still officers in Blackthorn. Not cool.

This was upsetting of course -- not that these officers were leaving, but that they were all scheming and plotting and doing this behind my back. I had a good relationship with all of them and was shocked that none of them had the courage to come to me and discuss things. I felt betrayed. Were they planning on just packing up and leaving in the middle of the night like the Baltimore Colts? I wasn't going to find out.

I spoke to each of them individually and asked them to explain what was going on. Each of them hum and hawed and made some excuses. In the end I asked them to leave the guild immediately.

That is the end of it. I of course feel some animosity towards Vox Draconis and its leaders for the way all of this was handled but I am not disheartened. This is simply another opportunity to refine, grow and strengthen Blackthorn but I do often wonder what I am doing all of this for...

A Night in the Black Temple

2008-11-04T10:11:00.012-07:00

While organizing my bank yesterday in Shattrath I noticed a request in one of my private chat channels for players interested in assaulting the Black Temple. I've only been inside the temple once, and that was to wipe four times on the first boss before giving up, and so I asked if they needed a decent paladin tank. I got the invite and was soon scrambling unexpectedly to make sure I had everything I needed to raid. The group was already saved to Black Temple, and so the plan was to begin at Reliquary of Souls and see how far we could get before we ran out of steam.

I had a big addon headache right off the start -- BigWigs is bugged somehow so that it disables my chat window, not allowing me to see anything that is said while kicking out errors messages. Anybody else experiencing this problem?

The group seemed good -- a mix of several decent guilds, but was made up mostly of people I have never raided with before. Any trash pulls were an absolute joke after the latest patch - tanks were just chain pulling packs willy-nilly and there was very little discipline on the way to the bosses.
Our first stop was the Reliquary of Souls. Awesome. It was very, very cool to experience a new and unique encounter. It was like nothing I had ever seen before and it was gorgeous. We wiped on the first attempt as people were still learning all the different phases of the fight. On the second attempt the boss went down fairly easily.
Despite nobody in the group having shadow resist gear we were off to attempt Mother Sharaz. We figured that after the great nerfing of raids we may still have a chance at getting her down and picking up some tier 6 shoulders for some lucky people.

We tried various positioning strategies but we wiped again and again. Fatal attraction, which teleports group members to some random locations then starts dealing insane amounts of shadow damage to everybody near those people, was brutal and efficient in killing us. No matter how fast people ran from others it was almost always a certain death for everybody afflicted. At one point we got her down to 1% before a wipe. The fight began to seem like a little luck - if we could get enough people to survive the first few fatal attractions and if those teleports were far from the main groups then we would have enough dps at the end of the fight to get her down.
I was not assigned to main tank Mother, but on each attempt it wasn't long before my threat was so high that I would end up tanking her the entire fight. I was doing a sustained 1,800 tps and no warrior or paladin tank could keep up with that. I am having an issue with managing all my cool downs in my rotation and knowing when abilities (like Judgement and Hammer of the Righteous) are available. I may need to look into an addon to track those. As a paladin tank managing all of these was never an issue before. Any suggestions?
We managed to down Mother Sharaz on our last attempt of the night. I have downed so many bosses on the Last Attempt of the Night. People tend to focus and really give it everything knowing that it is now or never. It as an exciting moment. I lost the roll on two paladin tier 6 shoulder tokens but I did win the amazing Tome of the Lightbringer. Hooray.

The night was a total blast. It was so much fun to see new content even though it is in a nerfed state. I absolutely love raiding and will go whenever and wherever I can to experience a good fight. I was told after the raid that I am welcome to run with them at anytime.

I'm looking forward to the expansion, but getting in some last minute raids is fun.

Where in the World?

2008-11-03T07:01:00.001-07:00

"Where in the World?" is a weekly feature in which I will post a screenshot from some beautiful location in Azeroth or Outland. I invite my readers to guess the location of the shot.

Standing Against the Plague of Undeath

2008-10-31T07:40:00.004-07:00

When our precious lands came under attack from the terrible Scourge I did not fear, nor did my courage falter as the waves of undead spewed forth from the terrible citadels of suffering sent forth by the Lich King himself. The call came from my beloved brothers of the Argent Dawn to rally around the banner of courage and unyielding faith. With my blessed armor to protect me, I answered their call without thought or hesitation -- for this is my purpose, as the Light guides me, to repel evil and cleanse our lands with holy fire.

With righteous vengeance I labored unceasingly against the tides of death; rarely sleeping as I roamed the deserts, forests and coastlines of our homeland. I shunned the cities where citizens clamored for the rightful order of their lives to be restored -- instead embracing hidden hollows and mountain crags as my home to avoid the watching eye that looked down on us from the skies.

Hundred, nay thousands, of the servants of the Dread Lord fell beneath the strength of my sword and the will of my faith. I battled at the side of many devout brothers and sisters until, weary from bloodlust, we watched as the armies of our mighty foe no longer stood.

Victory for the Light, strength and honor to us all.

On Healability

2008-10-30T07:48:00.010-07:00

Threat is gone. I could turn off Omen today and never, ever have to worry about losing aggro to anybody in my party or raid. It just will not happen. I lament the loss of threat as a meaningful statistic -- building and sustaining threat was one of our skills that (to a large degree) separated the good tanks from the poor tanks. Currently threat just happens magically and it is ignored in nearly all fights.

So if producing large amounts of sustained TPS is no longer something that we can hang our hat on, what will differentiate the good tanks from the poor tanks? I propose that the new differentiator will be what I call Healability. If a raid isn't bringing along the tank that can produce the most threat any longer then they are taking the tank that their healers can keep alive easily and efficiently.

Healability
A tank's job is not to survive. This may be counter to what the Warcraft community believes, but it is not the tanks job to go out there and stand in front of a pack of mobs all by himself and live to tell the tale. The player standing in front of the boss with a shield is only half of the tanking equation -- the healers are the other half. One of the biggest and most important jobs for a tank is to maximize the efficiency of this partnership by maximizing our healability.

A tanks job, if not to survive then, is to make it as simple and efficient as possible for the healers to keep us alive during the entire duration of a fight. I call this healability and it will be more important than threat (as far as I can tell currently) as we move forward.

Maximizing Healability
Most healers will tell you that it is much easier to heal a tank that is receiving predictable amounts of damage at regular intervals. Healing becomes difficult and mana inefficient when the tank is taking large amount of spike damage at irregular intervals. To maximize our healability it is important to increase stats that decrease damage taken on a linear basis -- things like armor, block value and hit points are the core stats as a tank to increase healability. These stats ensure that you are getting hit but that the damaged taken is both reduced by your mitigation and buffered by your large life pool.

What about Avoidance?
Can a tank stack only hit points, block value and armor and still survive? Probably not. If the healers can keep up with the damage (predictable and regular as it may be) they will soon run out of mana. A tank also needs to balance avoidance into the mix to also increase his or her healability. There is a balance that must be struck. Avoiding a hit will allow the healers that are on their toes to cancel heals in their queue and save that precious mana for when it will be needed later in the encounter. But how does a tank find the sweet spot? Communication.

Talk to your Healers
I cannot stress this enough: As a tank you are only half of the equation. If you want to know how healable your healers think you are as a tank just ask them. I assure you that they will be more than happy to have this conversation with you. Talk to them about damage spikes, mana issues, and predictability. Let them know you value their feedback and listen to them - they will help you find that sweet spot.

Of course, currently healers and tanks are running amok all over the world with no healability or mana issues. So having this conversation now will do little good but it doesn't hurt to start the dialog now as we all start working toward the new level 80 end game.

Where in the World?

2008-10-27T07:59:00.007-07:00

Our virtual world in which we play is beautiful and detailed and often overlooked. Lets stop and smell the Dreaming Glory and appreciate our environment.

"Where in the World?" is a new weekly feature on The Stoic Guardian. Each Monday I will post a screenshot from some beautiful location in Azeroth or Outland. I invite my readers to guess the location of the shot. I will post the correct answer in the comments after a few days and who knows, I may come up with some grand prizes for the first correct answer each week...

I give you the first screenshot:

A Note to the Scourge

2008-10-24T08:08:00.006-07:00

Dear Zombie,

As a paladin I am oath bound to destroy any minion of the Scourge I encounter. It is no matter to me that you were once a perfectly normal human mage -- my swift justice is blind to your past and indifferent to your pleas for mercy. You will burn in the fire of my Holy Wrath and I will shed no tear for you.

After I have released you from the grasp of the Scourge through death do not contact me unless it is to thank me for the swiftness of your release. Do not curse me or complain to me that you in fact desired to roam the land as a zombie. Do not claim that I have ruined your fun. My ears are deaf to your pettiness and if I ever find you again defiling the villages of our good people you can be assured that I will destroy you again. I will not rest.

May the Light guide and protect us,
Gothyelk, Warden of Omens, Blackthorn

Its a Mad, Mad Achievement World

2008-10-22T09:53:00.006-07:00

The world is in achievement frenzy. The masses have gone mad and I am among them. Shattrath is empty as previously bored level 70s are racing around the corners of the globe exploring forgotten places, loving frogs and snakes, slaying level 20 dungeon bosses, falling from great heights and otherwise making silly fun where before there was none.

I admit to being skeptical about the new achievement system when it was first announced, but now that it is live I have no choice but to love it. My personality type dictates that when I am given a list I must embrace that list and make sure each and every item gets checked off. Everything in its place and everything neat and tidy. No loose ends. I currently have 1860 achievement points -- I have no idea if that is a lot or not very much at all compared to others, but this is not a competition (at least to me). I achieve because I can.

But are these achievements? I feel no sense of accomplishment after demolishing Gnomeregan as a level 70 paladin other than the little afterglow of another check mark on that cursed list. Slaying Nefarian in Blackwing Lair as a level 60 is however something to be proud of and a real accomplishment. I would love to see Blizzard implement some diminishing returns for certain types of achievements. As you gain levels beyond that of the achievement level you will earn fewer and fewer achievement points until, at a certain point, you can no longer earn that achievement. Seeing somebody with the Molten Core achievement would then actually tell you something about that character and their history in the game - not just the level of their obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Core Hound Bad, Gorilla Good.

2008-10-21T07:43:00.005-07:00

I was finally able to dedicate some real time to my hunter Cunobelinus last night to really see for myself all of the new changes that took place in what people are referring to as The Hunter Patch. I admit that it was difficult to tear myself away from the fun I was having with my paladin (how does a protection paladin reach the number two spot in damage dealt in Eye of the Storm?) but wow I am glad I did.

The New Spec
I knew I wanted to remain a Beast Master hunter, at least for now. I went with this 51-point BM spec. Honestly, I am a bit underwhelmed by the talent changes (at least to BM). There are no new active abilities (they all seem to be passive) and so my game play has not really changed due to the new talents. I ran out and tamed myself an exotic Core Hound, the big white one living in the cave on Azuremyst Isle. I wanted to love him but I hate him. His pathing to targets is bugged, he is more of a puppy than a hound and his stomping makes my neighbors very, very angry. Not only that, every hunter in the world is running around with one of these things right now (/abandon).

I am not sold on the exotic pets. On paper it sounds super cool but the execution is extremely poor in my opinion. It may not be worth those extra points in the BM tree and I may soon be dumping more points in Marksmanship.

Pets, Pets, Pets...
So, with my Core Hound released back to the wild, I needed some new pets to run (or fly) by my side during my adventures. My first choice was a fun little purple wasp in Zangermarsh that I have named Bronwyn. She is gorgeous and her special ability Sting could be very effective against my enemies. I only ran around with her for a short time in Nagraand before tucking her into the stable and so I don't have a full impression yet. I'll comment more in the future on wasps.

And so lastly I went to train my new gorilla. I trained a big gorgeous silverback from Straglethorn Vale. Wow, I had so much fun with this gorilla. He looks fantastic lumbering along at my side and he can tank better than some warriors I know. He solo aoe tanked Underbog up to and including the first boss without any problems (he held aggro while myself and T5 geared moonkin were bombing away).
We then went to Nagrand to aoe down countless talbuks and clefthoofs using the new and improved volley. What a joy. He is a keeper for sure. My only issues with him is the slow pace at which he seems to reach his targets. I'm accustomed to my speedy cat, and so it felt as if I was waiting around for him to do his thing.

I'm looking forward to getting home tonight to level my new pets.

The New World Order

2008-10-20T12:28:00.010-07:00

These are from a TK run this weekend and let me tell you, it feels good to be up there in the top ten as a tank. The new age of paladin tanking is upon us. Our new Hammer of the Righteous is absolutely fantastic and threat is through the roof (I'm putting out a sustained 1,800 tps). It is surprising to see my auto attack second on my personal damage chart.

I have no real spell rotation worked out yet so I'm just flying by the seat of my greaves...

We Have a Drake!

2008-10-17T07:47:00.004-07:00

Earning the Albino Drake was both difficult and expensive. But wow, just look at us!

They Stole My Christmas

2008-10-15T10:04:00.003-07:00

I was like a giddy kid all day at work yesterday anticipating the many fun new toys waiting for me when I got home. But alas, my hopes were crushed. I spent several hours attempting to log in to the shiny new Warcraft while watching hockey but I never got any further than a loading screen. I went to bed sad and now I have to sit at work all day again....

At least my team won their first game of the season.

Titles I Absolutely, Positively Must Have

2008-10-13T09:44:00.005-07:00

I like titles. I like working toward a goal and being rewarded with a tap on the shoulder from the queen as she dubs me "Fancy pants this-or-that". With the patch release tomorrow and the advent of the new achievement system there are some new titles in the game that Gothyelk really must have.

My Current Titles
Sergeant Gothylk.
Yes, I have been around long enough to carry the old pvp title of sergeant. No, that isn't a very high rank but it was earned entirely in world pvp as I was leveling and defending the alliance territories from the horde.

Gothyelk, Champion of the Naaru
Destroy some heroics, complete some difficult quests and slay Nightbane, Gruul and Magtheridon. I am proud of this title.

Titles I Must Have
Ambassador Gothyelk
I need to reach exalted with Ironforge, Stormwind, Darnassus, Exodar and Gnomeregan Exiles for this title. I've completed Ironforge and Darnassus and am closing in on the others. I've had fun doing all the quests in the starting areas and seeing some new stuff but geez that is a lot of Runecloth.

Gothyelk the Diplomat
More reputation grinds. This title requires exalted status with Timbermaw Hold, Sporeggar and the Kurenai. All that is left for me on this one is the Timbermaw reputation. I hit revered just yesterday. Whew.

Gothyelk the Explorer
Explore the entire world and earn this title. You'll be suprised how much of the world you do not see when just leveling up and questing. I have completely explored the Eastern Kingdoms, Kalimdor and Outland. I'll have to wait to get this title after exploring all of Northrend.

Gothyelk, the Argent Champion
This is the big one. I love the Argent Dawn and this is an extension of that. I'm currently exalted with the Argent Dawn and will need to raise my Argent Crusade reputation to exalted in the expansion to earn this title.

I'm curious to see how many people will be running around with these titles in the future. I do know I have seen lots of level 70s grinding reputation all over the world. What titles do you want?

Censorship versus Respect

2008-10-09T11:51:00.005-07:00

Guild Drama. I have had my share of it during these last couple years while leading Mors Celeris and now Blackthorn but it has never got the best of me. I've never thrown up my hands and walked away -- I always wanted to solve any problems and make the guild a better and happier place for everybody. But wow, this recent round of guild crap has me pulling my hair out.

We have had a huge problem with inappropriate talk taking place in guild chat recently. The talk is always sexual in nature and ranges from innocent flirtations to overt discussions about specific sexual acts. I have made it very clear that this is unacceptable and will not be tolerated and yet it continues. I was online the other night when this started up again and I tried to bring it to a halt only to meet some resistance -- and in fact I have been told that after I logged out for the night it got more graphical and even more inappropriate.

I am certainly not out to be Big Brother and censor everything that is said in guild chat but this is a matter of respect. We have some young players in the guild and many people in the guild with children that sometimes watch the game as our members play. Also, I do not play this game, a game that allows me to escape into a world of magic and adventure, to be bombarded by the juvenile sexual banter of strangers. I have been approached by many members to complain about this matter and threaten to leave the guild if it continues.

I've tried to solve this this politely and nicely but that was simply met with sarcasm and more disrespect. I sent out the following in-game mail to the entire guild yesterday hoping to close this matter:

Blackthorn, I will keep this brief and to the point. We have had some issues recently with inappropriate conversations appearing in our guild chat. Many members have come to me to complain and insist that something be done. I strongly urge everybody to please treat your fellow guild members with respect and refrain from any offensive or inappropriate language and/or conversations in guild chat. I want to make it very clear that this type of behavior will not be tolerated in Blackthorn.

I hope that this will be the end of this matter, however if it does continue offending members will be given a single warning and any further abuse will be grounds for possible removal from the guild.

I will begin booting people from the guild if this continues. I have no choice. In the meantime, I have suggested that those who want to participate in such things create their own private channel. While this may remove it from our guild chat it creates another problem -- a divided guild. I don't want half our members socializing in guild chat and the other half socializing in a private channel. I can see that as being very unhealthy for the guild in the long-term and so I am hoping that this is a temporary solution.

Anybody else have a situation like this and can shed some light on how it was handled in their guild?

My Hunter in Arena: Update

2008-10-08T08:30:00.006-07:00

Many of you may recall some time ago I announced my intention to walk confidently into arenas with Cunobelinus, my beast master hunter, to see how I could fare in that cut throat world. After several false starts with various 2v2 partners I have started playing regularly with my brother and super-evil affliction warlock Mathinet.

We have played together now for four weeks and have a rating of 1400. Am I proud of that? Well, yes and no. Announce "BM hunter 229 resil LF 2s team. 1400 rating. PST" in trade channel and you will get ridiculed and mocked. But I am pleased with our progress and that 1400 was earned with our blood (and lots of curses and tears). We are learning strategy, line of sight opportunities and communication.

The Good

Cloth. Any team that comes at us with a cloth wearing caster is pretty much toast. I can rip warlocks, mages and priests to shreds before they know what hit them while my partner is cursing and fearing up a storm.
Paladins don't give us much trouble either. We faced a two pally team this week, one healer and one retribution and we ended up running them both out of mana and then kiting them around until they both died a slow and terrible death.
My pet. I have been suprised that my lion goes ignored most of the time. I was expecting him to be a primary kill target but he chases casters around unobstructed while chewing on their bones.

The Bad

Warriors. We never know what to do with them. Focus fire on them and we are feeding him rage while he beats us down with his giant mace. Ignoring warriors and/or CCing them doesn't seem to be effective either. Any advice here?
Stealthers. Nothing worse than coming into an arena and not see any opponents. We never know what to do. I generally drop a freezing trap behind us and wait for them to come to us but I imagine that isn't the best strategy.

The Ugly

Dual melee teams. Any team that has two melee DPS tears us apart. Two rogues? Dead. Rogue and warrior? Dead. Rogue and enhancement shaman? Dead. They get on top of us and we can't get them off. We really need to work on this.
Druids. Typical scenario is a warrior comes at us and we see nobody else so we try to deal with the warrior the best we can. When the warrior reaches 50% health a druid appears and heals the warrior. We switch targets to try to get the healer down and the druid throws some HOTs on himself and then just runs around and we cannot kill him. Druids are the bane of my arena existence right now.

I did pick up my Brutal Gladiator's Chain Gauntlets as a reward for some time spent learning the arena system. Our goal is to get our rating back up to 1550 to get the season four legs and then earn enough arena points to grab some of the discounted season three gear.

Bored to Hell

2008-10-07T06:53:00.003-07:00

I see it all the time in the trade channel, I see it in general and I see it in guild chat. People playing the game that sit around one of the major cities complaining that they are bored out of their minds. I don't know about you, but if I was playing a game that was boring me to the point that I had to whine about it to other people I would certainly log out and find something interesting to do...

(and yes, I'm grinding Timbermaw Hold reputation - but more on that later...)

The Sky is Falling

2008-10-06T08:48:00.006-07:00

The stock market is tumbling as fears grow of an escalating global financial crisis. Government's are struggling to protect people's savings and maintain financial stability. There is very real problem with the world economy right now. There is also a financial decline taking place in the World of Warcraft. The WoW economy is undergoing drastic changes as people begin to sell-off surplus items and the need for these same items is at an all time low as people wait in anticipation for the upcoming expansion. Gold is being horded by players for new and bigger ticket items that have not yet hit the market.

The server on which I play has seen prices plummet 50% - 75% in the last week alone. Usual Auction House money makers like gems and primals are at an all time low. Speculators are broke and jumping from the walls of Stormwind. Those artisans and gatherers that are continuing to work are having difficulty feeding their families.

Here are some examples of what I am seeing in the auction houses:

Stack of Heavy Knothide Leather: 130g > 60g
Stack of Thick Clefthoof Leather: 145g > 65g
Primal Air & Fire: 45g > 14g
Primal Water & Shadow: 25g > 12g
Large Prismatic shards: 30g > 10g
Flasks: 50g > 10g
Fel Lotus: 45g > 16g
Stack of Ancient Lichen: 45g > 11g
Stack of Adamantite Ore: 45g > 14g

It is continuing to fall on a daily basis as people panic and attempt to undercut everybody else, but there are no buyers. I have stopped farming and selling materials, choosing instead to spend my time grinding for things like reputation rather than cold hard cash.

If you emptied your bank before the current decline then you made some nice golds, if you have waited until now to enter the market then you have waited too long -- and there is no bailout coming from the governments of the Alliance or Horde to help us.

A Journey to Ahn'Qiraj

2008-10-03T12:22:00.009-07:00

During this lull time before the patch and upcoming expansion I am making it a point to relax and go on some adventures that I have always longed to take but have never had the time. A couple of days ago I gathered up my guild and friends and traveled to the desert of Silithus for a grand adventure inside Ahn'Qiraj. Only a few of us had ever set foot inside the scarab wall and lived to tell of its secrets, legends and creatures.

We decided to enter in the true spirit of adventure -- no pre-planning, no looking up boss fights on WowWiki and no lengthy descriptions of pulls or mob abilities. We would learn as we go and adapt as we learned. It was a total blast.
We entered the Temple of Ahn'Qiraj first and meet serious resistance. The Prophet Skeram proved too difficult for our small band and we soon retreated to the comfort of Cenarion Hold to repair our armor and tend to our wounds. A second assault was ordered, this time on the Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj. We sliced through our foes and quickly dispatched of Ossirian the Unscarred. It was a glorious and enjoyable moment.

If you have not seen these fantastic places or have not read the lore of those lands then I suggest you do so.

Becoming Exalted with the Argent Dawn

2008-10-01T11:51:00.010-07:00

Way back in the day, as soon as he reached level 50 and before Burning Crusade had been released, Gothyelk rode gallantly into the Western Plaguelands to offer his sword, loyalty and blood to the Argent Dawn. From that day till now the Argent Dawn has been my favorite faction in the game - the lore is deep and the quests for the most part are meaningful. I really felt as if I was recruited to the cause when I was given my Argent Dawn commission.

I ended up raising my reputation with the Argent Dawn to honored before Burning Crusade was released, mostly through quests and killing too many skeletons to count. I was sad that I wasn't able to get it higher before packing my bags, hanging up my commission and heading to Outland for new adventures. I still look back to those days of my service to the Argent Dawn with fondness and longed for something as meaningful.

With the release of the upcoming expansion soon and the introduction of Achievements I found a reason to return to those blighted lands and again lend my sword to the noble cause. I decided to raise my reputation with the Argent Dawn in the hopes or receiving the title Argent Champion (yes i love titles) in the expansion by obtaining exalted status with both the Argent Dawn and the new Argent Crusade.

Grinding Argent Dawn Reputation
Raising your reputation with some old world factions is not an easy task. At first glance the hurdle seems insurmountable - math is not my strongest skill but I'm clever enough to know that to get 30,000 reputation points 75 at a time will take a ton of work. But once you swallow that initial pill and get to work it isn't too bad. Here is what I did:

Be certain you have your Argent Dawn Commission equiped while doing this grind. If you have lost yours pick up another one at Chillwinbd Camp.
Pick up a Vitreous Focuser from Chillwind Camp as well. This will allow you to loot certain drops off mobs that will turn into nice reputation turn-ins. You only need to have this item in your bags while grinding.
Head to Gharron's Withering and kill everything in sight. You can circle the cauldron killing the mobs in large groups (don't forget to go in the buildings). Spawn time is usually fast enough that by the time you are back to where you started the monsters are alive and kicking and you won't have much downtime.
You will be getting the following drops: Runecloth, Ectoplasmic Resonators, Minion's Scourgestones and Invader's Scourgestones.
When your bags are full ride back to Chillwind camp. I would usually head back to camp when I had a high number of Ectoplasmic Resonators that was divisible by four. You'll see why later.
Turn in your Minion's Scourgestones in stacks of twenty for 50 reputation. You will also receive an Argent Dawn Valor Token which will give you an additional 100 reputation when used.
Turn in your Invader's Scourgestones in stacks of ten for 50 reputation. You will also receive an Argent Dawn Valor Token which will give you an additional 100 reputation when used.
Divide how many Ectoplasmic Resonators you have in your bag by four. Visit Alchemist Arbington in Chillwind Camp and purchase that number of Arcane Quickeners.
Run back to the big black cauldron in the middle Gharron's Withering and complete the quest Gahrron's Withering Cauldron. Completing this quest requires one Arcane Quickener, four Runecloth and four Ectoplasmic Resonators and will give 50 reputation for each repeatable completion.
Start killing everything again. Rinse and repeat.

You will get a lot of reputation each time you complete the cycle outlined above. It is fairly mindless work but it gets the job done.

Now, can Blizzard please give me the sexy Argent Dawn tabard for being exalted?

Fun at Brewfest

2008-09-30T06:57:00.004-07:00

I've been having a blast recently playing around at Brewfest with friends and guild mates as we all take a big breath before the next content patch and expansion. Typically we all head to Blackrock Depths (one of my favorite places in the world by the way) and spend a good hour or more slaying Coren Direbraw repeatedly as we swap in every alt we can get our hands on. We laugh, we break barrels and we hang out in the coolest bar in Azeroth.

Mr. Direbrew drops some pretty nice trinkets, but I wasn't interested in too many of those. What I wanted more than anything (and finally got) was Direbrew's Remote. What dwarf does not want the ability to travel instantly to the Grim Guzzler deep within Blackrock Mountain from anywhere in the world via a personal tunneling machine? This is my favorite new toy.

Despite all our fun we had yet to see a single special mount drop. Until last night. Gothyelk now rides in style on the back of a giant lizard. Who said there isn't any more fun in the game?

The Gaming Information Divide

2008-09-22T09:48:00.008-07:00

As a user interface designer one of the tenants that I strive to follow is that of information transparency. The interface itself should be able to teach, inform and guide the user without the need for the user to seek knowledge about how to operate the interface from external sources (such as user manuals, tutorials, friends or co-workers). This isn't always an easy task, but the job isn't to make the interface intuitive (meaning obvious) but coherent and learnable through use.

I am troubled and baffled that Blizzard has completely ignored this when designing World of Warcraft. They have been seemingly lazy by relying on external sources to provide information to players that is actually required to effectively play the game. Simple mechanics (like hit rating for example) are treated as crucial knowledge inside the game yet are left unexplained and unsupported. Nowhere can a player find a list of useful gems or enchants for new items inside the game, nowhere is haste rating explained and you won't find a detailed description of how much dodge rating you need to equal 1% dodge.

This leads to what I call the gaming information divide in World of Warcraft. On one side you have players that play the game but do not have the time, energy, resources or knowledge to dive into Warcraft theorycrafting or even class mechanics outside of the game. These are good, dedicated players but they will never reach their full potential and, worst case, will be severely handicapped. On the other side of the fence you have those that research their class mechanics, gear and other aspects of the game outside of the game. These are not min-maxers necessarily, but people that like to know what they are doing.

Is it fair to players that Blizzard expects and requires them to learn about the game via external sources? No, I do not think it is. We are leaving people behind and the divide is growing. Imagine being a player that likes to play, has a blast with friends and raids casually but doesn't have the time to read Warcraft sites, blogs, blue posts, etc. Now imagine waking up the morning of patch 3.0.2 and logging in to your beloved paladin only to find that you have a brand new talent tree, your gear has been re-itemized, and you are clueless. That is a painful thought and a steep learning curve for people.

There are plenty of user interface practices and models that would address this problem in our game. When I have more time I may suggest a few here...

Gothyelk in Hiding

2008-09-19T11:25:00.002-07:00

Inevitably, apologies are made on a blog after an unforeseen absence by the writer and this is no exception. Some real life stuff, some guild drama, some short breaks and lack of motivation have all contributed to the sparse posting recently. Dear readers, I apologize.

Gothyelk did manage to get exalted with the Argent Dawn during this absence. That was something.

Regular (and hopefully interesting and insightful) posts will be starting p again. Hold on to your hats...

Let the Bear Runs Begin!

2008-08-29T12:05:00.003-07:00

Inspired by Cynra, I have organized my own weekly Zul'Aman bear runs with a group of friends, guildmates and just good all-around people I have met on my many adventures. I don't know what the theory-crafters have determined to be the optimum raid composition for the four timed chests runs, but we will most likely be running with the following:
* Protection Paladin
* Protection Warrior
* Resto Druid
* Holy Priest
* Resto/Balance Druid
* Beast Mastery Hunter
* Beast Mastery Hunter
* Balance Druid
* Demonology Warlock
* Frost Mage
All members were selected because I have raided with them, they know what they are doing and, more importantly, they are not rude, abrasive or annoying. I like them all. Liking the people you raid with makes a big difference in performance in my opinion.

We may not be successful right off the get-go, but as long as we are consistent I feel confident we'll be handing out Amani War Bears in no time.

What I Hope to Achieve

2008-08-27T12:51:00.003-07:00

I am a very goal-oriented person, and so with time winding slowly down before the exodus to Northrend I have compiled the following list of things I want to accomplish before waving farewell to Outland.

Gothyelk
* Achieve exalted status with Lower City
* Achieve exalted Status with Keepers of Time
* Down at least the first boss in the Black Temple
* Obtain the Amani War Bear

Cunobelinus
* Gather up some badge gear
* Train artisan riding skill
* Obtain the Cenarion War Hippogryph

That is not a long list but it should keep me fairly busy. And with the new talents being released in a patch before the expansion (and Paladin tanking mechanics getting an overhaul) I am going to need to spend some considerable time understanding the changes and working with Gothyelk's gear to best take advantage of the new talents.

Stacking Special Abilities

2008-08-25T08:00:00.006-07:00

For some time now I admit to being a hunter that would sequence my special abilities on boss fights. What does this mean? Well, I would cast Bestial Wrath and wait for that ability to finish before activating my Bloodlust Brooch, then sometime later in the fight I would activate Rapid Fire. I would use all my abilities but never at the same time - I wanted something up for at least most of the fight. I did some pretty nice DPS using this method.

But wait, what would happen if one would stack all of these abilities? Burn them all at once, turning a stout little Dwarf hunter into a focused inferno of a killing machine? Let's find out. Hello Dr. Boom.

Test One: Sequence
In this test I fired as many shots as I could until I went out of mana using a 3:2 shot rotation macro. I cast Bestial Wrath, waited for Bestial Wrath to fade, activate Bloodlust Brooch, waited for the trinket to fade and then cast Rapid Fire. None of these abilities ever overlapped.
I fired 110 shots before going completely out of mana. Total DPS was 704.5

Test 2: Stacking
In the second test I again fired as many shots as I possible until going out of out of mana using a 3:2 shot rotation macro. This time however I activated all three abilities at once - Bestial Wrath, Bloodlust Brooch and Rapid Fire.
Amazingly I fired 111 shots using this method with a total DPS of 786.8.

That is a total DPS increase of 82.3 from test one to test two. That is an absolutely gigantic increase in damage output by simply stacking these abilities on top of each other. I have created a little macro that allows me to easily stack these abilities:

#show tooltip
/use Bloodlust Brooch
/castsequence reset=20 Bestial Wrath, Rapid Fire

Because of the way Blizzard has implemented macros (you cannot cast two spells with a single click) you have to push this macro button twice. The first click will activate the Bloodlust Brooch and cast Bestial Wrath, the second click will cast Rapid Fire.

I was completely blown away by how much of a DPS increase one gains by simply stacking special abilities/spells/trinkets. I'll be doing it this way from now on and those moonkins and mages chasing me on the DPS meters will just have to work a little bit harder.

A Peek into Black Temple

2008-08-23T11:41:00.004-07:00

I had the great fortune of raiding Black Temple for the first time last night. Tanking inside the Black Temple was one of the major items on my list of things to do before the expansion. It was fun, it was amazing and it was frustrating. We couldn't kill the first boss and the raid was a bit of a goat rodeo - there were some under-geared folks that just should not have been there.

Better next time I hope.

Tanking Boots. Convince Me!

2008-08-22T08:18:00.006-07:00

I am always looking to improve my gear, but who isn't? Most of the time the next upgrade path in any given gear slot is pretty clear, but there are those times when the waters get muddy and things just are not so cut and dry. Like my boots.

I have been wearing my Boots of the Protector for as long as I can remember. I crafted them myself before I even started Karazhan, they were one of my first epics and I am still proudly wearing them today. Talk about a good investment (I'm going to Black Temple tonight). But when one wears a piece of gear that long one starts to get a little nervous, the gear clock in the brain is screaming upgrade.

The accepted next upgrade for my boots are the Sabatons of the Righteous Defender, which are purchasable for 60 Badge of Justice. I'm not so sure I want these.
Yes, I will gain a nice chunk of stamina with the Sabatons but at what cost? I will lose 22 intellect, 8 defense rating, 17 shield block rating and 4 spell damage. In exchange I will gain the stamina I already mentioned, some (nearly) useless spell hit rating and a little block value. Doesn't seem worth it.

Don't get me wrong, I love stamina but I also like to be a balanced tank - and so giving up that avoidance is tough to swallow for stats I don't find extremeley valuable. Perhaps I could throw a Subtle Crimson Spinel in the red slot to get some of that avoidance back and pick up the stamina socket bonus but that simply breaks me even on avoidance (roughly) and a gain of 16 stamina with a Solid Empyrean Sapphire in the blue socket.

Right now I don't think the upgrade is worth it. Can somebody convince me that it is?

Orgy of Negativity

2008-08-21T07:26:00.005-07:00

There has been a trend on Blackthorn's guild chat recently that has me troubled - extreme negativity. Interestingly, this negative attitude isn't pointed at the guild itself or people in the guild (thank goodness) but is rather a generic vanilla rash of complaining. Guild members are hanging out in guild chat and unceasingly complaining about anything and everything in the game. When one person starts everybody joins in and soon it is an orgy of negativity.

Topics recently have included: the cost of enchants and why they don't have them, arrakoa feathers, classes getting screwed in WotLK, DPS warriors never finding groups, people not having any/enough gold, "I'm bored, I'm bored, save me", alliance noobs in AV, blah, blah, blah. All standard fare. You get the point.

To make matters worse, it has not been limited to game complaining. People are complaining about real-life now too. Crappy jobs, lack of job, shoddy relationships, foreign affairs, and the waiter that ignored them for twenty minutes. I hear it all. I know this is nothing new but come on, I do not play this game to hear other people whining and complaining. This game is an escape from those things.

I've contacted a few members and officers to see if we can't influence the guild chat attitude and make it a more positive place for people. We'll see how it goes.

The Great Hunt for Arash-ethis

2008-08-15T08:01:00.006-07:00

While standing in Shatt last week I had the urge to try a new pet. My lion Amairgen has been a loyal and faithful companion for as long as I can remember but he needed a rest and I had the itch to hunt and tame a great wind serpent. I am drawn to the dragon-like qualities of these beautiful animals and wanted one by my side.

I had come across many wind serpents in my travels but yet I desired only a single one - the mighty white serpent Arash-ethis. Arash-ethis is truly rare and makes his home in the deep woods of Feralas. I was thrilled for the adventure but knew this would not be an easy task. Would I be up to the hunt? I packed my bags with the necessary supplies and kissed loved ones goodbye with the intention of not returning to the city until the great beast was mine.
For two days I tracked the serpent through the dense forest. I would see signs of his passing but never once did I catch even a glimpse of him. At night I would sleep beneath the stars and listen to the sounds of the woods taunting my weakness. On the third day, as my resolve to capture this beast was nearly gone, I spotted a flash of white across the valley.
On investigation I spotted Arash gracefully moving through the brush. This wind serpent was more amazing and more beautiful than I had imagined. I quietly followed him from a distance, watching his movements and learning his behaviors. And then I moved.

Training the great serpent was almost spiritual. The beast looked into my eyes and then he was mine. He went from the wild master of the forest to my companion in the blink of an eye. I believe that we will make a great team. I have named him Fáfnir.
We are currently adventuring in Nagraand together as Fáfnir levels and grows accustomed to my ways and I to his. This relationship should last a long time.

My New 50/11 Talent Build

2008-08-13T07:53:00.004-07:00

I tweaked my talents last night and came up with a new 0/50/11 build that I am going to give a try for the next several weeks to see how I like it. I previously had the pretty standard 0/49/12 paladin tanking build and it was serving me great - no problems at all with it, but I wanted to work Reckoning back into my tanking build. Here is what I did:
Take two points out of Spell Warding. I had a difficult time giving this up since as a tank I really struggle when I am taking spell damage. All that armor and mitigation does nothing for me. I might as well be naked. We'll have to see how taking 4% more spell damage works out but I'm a little worried about that. One other option here was to give up Precision, but I like the extra hit and the threat it gives.

Take one point out of Improved Judgment. With only a single point in this talent I have increased the time between judgments by a full second. Judging a seal is a gigantic part of my threat as a paladin tank and, at least in theory, this sounds like a terrible trade-off. Now in practice it may not be such a big deal as cool-downs are overlapping and conflicting and judging a seal was not always the the highest priority.

Add three points in Reckoning. This is the talent I was going for. Reckoning will give a really nice threat burst when it is up and taking only three out of the five points should still guarantee that it procs when I am being beaten on by multiple targets.

Will I gain or lose threat by taking Reckoning over Improved Judgment? Will I lose some survivability with the absence of Spell Warding? These are questions I will by answering over the next few weeks while I give this new talent build a shake-down in raids.

Continued Growth

2008-08-11T09:27:00.003-07:00

Time for a guild report. Blackthorn has been growing at an amazing rate recently with 3-4 new members a week over the last month. We do not do any active recruiting but we often meet good players in PUGs that turn out to be good people as well and they often express an interest to join us. It has worked out well.

Just a few nights ago however an entire guild approached us hoping to fold themselves into Blackthorn. It is a story that is all to familiar to all of us - the guild, Praetorian, had hit a wall of progression, people were leaving to do raiding elsewhere but they did not want to disband becasue they were more casual than hardcore and enjoyed the social aspects of their guild. After some officers mettings and discussions with the other guild we took in about 26 new level 70 members to Blackthorn.

Now, this isn't going to suddenly propel us into 25-man raids on a regular basis as many of them are still in the Kara range of progression but it gives us something really nice to build on for the future. It isn't all good though, I forsee some growing pains and some questions that will need to be answered that we have never had to ask as a guild before. How do you select raid rosters when there are more people that want to attend than there are spots available? Should varisty and junior-varsity raid teams be created?

I'll tell you what, it is a very odd sensation to be on at night and have 24 other guild members online. I've never had that before.

Loot Rank

2008-08-07T08:55:00.005-07:00

I am a twiddler. I love to sit and go through gear lists and loot tables for hours on end while building my gear and upgrade strategy. Recently, my favorite tool to do this has been Loot Rank.

Loot Rank, like the popular new feature on Wowhead, allows users to build custom weighted filters for gear and weapons. What I really like about Loot Rank is that it allows me to save all of my custom filters for easy retrial later (after registering). It also shows all gear slots, gems and consumables on a single page. Personally, I find Loot Rank much easier and more enjoyable to use than Wowhead.

I have created a protection paladin template. Check it out, tweak it and let me know what you think.
One thing about these filters is that I find myself tweaking the inputs to get a set of desirable results based on my previous knowledge of paladin tanking gear. A wagon before the horse kind of thing.

A Bloody Maddening Quest

2008-08-06T12:01:00.006-07:00

Worst quest in the game? For me there is no question, the worst quest in the game is I Was A Lot of Things... The quest starts with Oronok Torn-heart near his little farm in the northern mountains of Shadowmoon Valley and is part of the very long and very important Cipher of Damnation quest line so it cannot be skipped. This quest is utterly and completely maddening, each time I have done it I swear I almost quit the bloody game forever. It is that bad. Oronok can take his whistle and shove it....

You are given the orders to "go to the area north of here and gather tubers for me? Use this whistle while standing on a tuber mound and a boar will come dig one up!" Sounds simple enough. But you get over there and there are a few problems - the tubers you are looking for do not spawn very often at all and when they do there is no felboar near enough to it to call over. Meanwhile other felboars are being torn to shreds by flayers making it even less likely that you will ever find the magical and rare tuber-felboar combo. If you have done this quest you know exactly what I mean.

I have easily spent over an hour on this simple quest alone. Remember that Weird Al song One More Minute? Yeah, its like that. I'd rather spend eternity eating shards of broken glass than do this quest (or one like it) ever again.

So what is your worst quest in World of Warcraft?

Gothyelk Goes to Mount Hyjal - Victory!

2008-08-05T07:35:00.006-07:00

Last night was one of the most exciting and most enjoyable nights playing World of Warcraft I have had for a long time. It was to be my much anticipated first journey into Mount Hyjal and tier 6 content and damn if I wasn't thrilled!
I was assigned to be one of the two paladin tanks to pick up and aoe tank the incoming waves of mobs as they came rushing toward the raid and camp. Hunters drop frost traps, I consecrate, some NPC's get involved, some CC is happening somewhere and then all hell breaks loose as our DPS opens up with every AOE attack they have. It was controlled chaos and I was in the middle of it all taking a beating and holding those mobs in place with everything I had. I absolutely loved it. Our DPS was a little behind at times and I found myself having to pick up a new wave before the previous wave completely dead - thankfully that didn't happen too often.
During the trash waves Pepe's Shroud of Pacification dropped and a call went out from the raid leader for need rolls. The other paladin tank rolled but I had my sights set on another piece of gear I was hoping would drop so I passed. Would I regret that?

There was some confusion and miscommunication with our warrior tank assigned to pick up Rage Winterchill. This resulted in a couple early casualties that we would have difficulty recovering from. We eventually had a 1% wipe on our first attempt on the Lich. Not bad at all. Lets do it again.

During the second attempt the Hammer of Judgement dropped from the trash waves. I really wanted this mace. The other paladin tank moaned audibly on vent - he had made an error and my gamble had paid off. I was the only roll. I was so happy to get an upgrade from Hyjal. Yes, it is ugly but it will do the job very nicely thank you.

We managed to down Rage Winterchill on our second attempt. Our first tier 6 boss killed. Everybody was so excited. It feels good to be part of such a team effort.
Hyjal has to be my favorite raid thus far. I really enjoyed the pacing - once you get started there isn't the stop-start-stop that you find in so may other raids. You had to be on your toes and concentrating for nearly a full thirty minutes. I was in my element.

Oh, and by the way, if you are going to be aoe tanking in Hyjal you had better bring a second shield along - my first one was completely destroyed from all the beatings I took.

Let Them Be Used!

2008-08-04T09:21:00.002-07:00

Okay, long time complaint here that I just need to get off my chest out there and into the Interweb: I am sick of having abilities and talents that I cannot use during boss fights, and I don't think I am the only one that feels this.

Why give classes and specs all of these nifty and unique spells and abilities only to make them unusable on boss fights when you need them the most? Do you know how frustrating that is? We spend valuable talent points learning these great spells and abilities that we really love to use. We use these spells and abilities in our rotations and strategies everyday. Why snatch them away when the going gets tough and they are really needed?

I understand that Blizzard does not want to make boss fights trivial with certain classes and abilities but come on, you are the Master Control Program. Write the boss fight encounters so we can use all of our abilities and the fights are still meaningful and a challenge. Let us feel as if we are still using our most loved and valued abilities.

I'm sick of standing around before a boss fight while everybody talks at great length about what we can and cannot do. You know what I am talking about...

Personal Raid Consumables

2008-07-31T07:18:00.012-07:00

There has been numerous articles written and discussed regarding the proper consumables one should bring to a raid to maximize the performance of our characters. But what about the performance and happiness of the player behind the character? Don't ignore the importance of personal raid consumables. Here are a few of my favorite:

Water
A dehydrated raider will become lethargic and apathetic. A glass of water will keep a raider refreshed and able to call out "totem! on vent clearly. Water can also be used to splash on ones face in moments of shock. Too much water however will result in frequent "brb, bio" frustration, so use in moderation.

Dr. Pepper
When water just doesn't cut it. Caffeine is a staple of all raiders and this delicious elixir is my source of choice to keep me energized as the raid creeps past the scheduled stopping time and into the wee hours of the night. One more attempt on the boss? No worries here.

Animal Crackers
A simple snack that hearkens back to happier childhood memories. Perfect for those times a raider needs a munchie but doesn't want the sugar from candy. These can cause excessive crunching so use with caution while on vent. Also contains calcium for strong raiding bones.

Swedish Fish
My all-time favorite. These little babies are soft, super delicious and bite-size making them an almost perfect raid consumable. If things are happening fast and furious on the screen just bite off the head and save the rest for a calmer downtime (perhaps when those mages are drinking).

Raisinets
There are times that I crave chocolate. It happens often. There is an abundance of personal raid consumables that can satisfy this craving, but I have personally found that little raisins covered in chocolate are ideal. The tiny size makes it easy to pop a few in ones mouth even in the middle of complex boss fights.

Tip: Always remember to avoid consumables that leave nasty finger residue or require the use of utensils.

What are you favorite personal raiding consumables?

Boots of the Crimson Hawk vs. Shadowhunter's Treads

2008-07-30T06:58:00.011-07:00

When the Shadowhunter's Treads dropped in Zul'Aman a few nights ago I wasn't exactly sure what to make of them. At the time I was wearing the Boots of the Crimson Hawk, which I had proudly crafted.
Honestly, I wasn't really sure how much of an upgrade these new boots were, if any. As you can see, they share almost the exact same base stats with the only difference being a point or two here and there. I was confused. When comparing these two items it really comes down to a new stat that I do not have much experience with: Armor Penetration. With my current gear, is 8 AP and 105 ArP worth losing the 19 critical strike rating? Cheeky's Spreadsheet said it was not, but I had to find out for myself - yup, it was time for my very first Dr. Boom Gear Test.

Methodology
The comparison test was performed in Netherstorm on the infamous Dr. Boom (who is tired of hunters perched on rocks shooting bullets or arrows into him while he does nothing). Two comparison tests were performed: first, both boots using auto shot only and second, both boots using a 3:2 macro. All tests were performed with no buffs and any gear that could possibly produce a proc to increase damage was removed (Romulo's Poison Vile and Shattered Sun Pendant of Might). I shot 100 shots for each test.

For the Macro test I was using the following macros:
#showtooltip Steady Shot
/console Sound_EnableSFX 0
/cast !Auto Shot
/click [target=pettarget,exists] MultiBarBottomLeftButton12
/cast Steady Shot
/console Sound_EnableSFX 1
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

#showtooltip Kill Command
/castsequence reset=4 Kill Command, !Auto Shot, !Auto Shot, !Auto Shot

Test One: Auto Shot
Boots of the Crimson Hawk
Shadowhunter's Treads

Test Two: 3:2 Macro
Boots of the Crimson Hawk

Shadowhunter's Treads

Analysis
In test one the Shadowhunter's Treads did a total of 1,279 more damage than the Boots of the Crimson Hawk. Interestingly, the average damage the Shadowhunter's Treads did on normal attacks (non-crit) was one point less than the Crimson Hawk.

In the second test it was a near dead heat. The Boots of the Crimson Hawk did a total of 51,207 damage while the Shadowhunter's Treads output 51,356 damage - that is a delta of only 149 damage. What is interesting is the auto shots of the Shadowhunter's Treads were averaging 4 more points of damage than those of the Boots of the Crimson Hawk - something I would expect as a result of the armor penetration.

At the end of the test it really is nearly even with the Shadowhunter's Treads only slightly ahead. I have decided to go ahead and use the new ZA boots for one important reason - as I gather more armor penetration gear they will just get better and better (I currently have 350 ArP). Armor penetration works on a curve - as it increases the value of what you already have also increases. For a good discussion of armor penetration please see Drotara's article on the subject.

Whew, that is a lot of information, but I enjoyed doing this test. I hope you found it useful.

In Which Cunobelinus Travels to Zul'Aman

2008-07-29T08:40:00.005-07:00

While sitting in Shattrath the other night Cunobelinus got a whisper from a friend that a group was heading into ZA for a full clear, maybe two or three timed chests and wanted to know if I wanted to go. It didn't take me long to agree.

I have done ZA several times as a tank (but never a full clear) so I knew the fights but I was still nervous going in as a hunter for the very first time. I wasn't sure what to expect but all went well. We got two chests and almost the third. We downed Hex Lord after a few wipes and then went back in the next day to conquer Zul'Jin. It was a great learning experience for me and I really think that Cunobelinus has finally come of age.

I was the only hunter in the group and came away with some really nice gear: Pauldrons of Primal Fury, Shadowhunter's Treads and the Dagger of Bad Mojo. All are spectacular upgrades for me (I also get to start dual wielding, which I have always wanted to do). Of particular interest to me are the armor penetration items I am now starting to acquire and how they stack up. Look for a boot comparison in the next day or so focusing on that stat.

I was pleased with my performance and was complimented by all party members. That makes a new hunter feel good.

Take notice of how often my pet Amairgen is missing. I am now thinking of taking the second point in Animal Handler (dumping Bestial Swiftness) to reduce his misses and up the DPS, even by just a little bit.

One thing that really made an impression on me is the amount of pet management that Zul'Aman requires, especially toward the end. I was constantly healing, calling my pet out of battle, sending him back in and other things to try to keep him alive and doing damage. Despite my efforts he died several times and there was no way I could keep him alive during the Zul'Jin eagle phase.

I'm not sure what the best strategy is to manage a pet during those pet unfriendly fights. Any suggestions?

Lich King Embargo

2008-07-26T07:00:00.006-07:00

Um, I am pretty sick of WotLK already. I am tired of the speculation, the hype and the cries of impending doom. I just want to finish up Burning Crusade in style and glide into the expansion naive and bright-eyed. Problem is, nearly every forum and every blog is listing every detail about the new expansion down to the color of the underwear on the allinace NPCs.

I have guildmates playing the beta and popping in from time to time to flood guild chat with detailed information about the class changes ("OMG Nerf!") and their experiences across Northrend. I'm happy for them, but I want to play the game for the first time when it is released by Blizzard, not vicariously through them.

Let it be known that I am ordering an embargo on all WotLK info, you won't find any here on this site until the game is on the live servers and I'm trading in my epics for quest greens.

Know This, New Arena Person: You’re Gonna Die

2008-07-25T09:00:00.007-07:00

I always have been and always will be a PvE player - I enjoyed games like Duke Nukem 3D and Quake but as soon I tried the PvP aspect of those games I would pull my hair out in frustration as I would die over and over again to spazmodic players jumping non-stop and shooting rockets at my feet. That is a bad memory.

But memories fade and I want to give my hunter Cunobelinus a shot at PvP in World of Warcraft. Like most people, I've jumped into a battleground from time to time but we are now talking serious, hardcore PvP - the arenas. I know nothing about them but I'm going in with my gun blazing.

I needed some help and I needed it fast so I fired BigRedKitty an e-mail asking for some powerful zen hunter advice. He came back with:

"Know this, new arena person: You’re gonna die. You’re gonna die in the blue arena PvP set. You’re gonna die in the epic arena PvP sets.You’re gonna die in epic crafted gear, Kara gear, T5, T6, and Merciless and Vengeful and whatever else gear you get. Gear is not the savior of arena. It helps, no doubt, but there is something much more important:Skill.

And you don’t have it. At least, not yet. And since you don’t have Skill, you’re gonna get destroyed by those teams that do. Wiped out. Obliterated. Smushed into dust. But don’t look at it like that’s a bad thing.

Look at it as a Learning Experience."

I am prepared to die and die often, and I am prepared to learn. Let's get on with it then. I spent yesterday putting together my noob PvP gear set (okay, I admit that my motivation to PvP may simply be to get another gear set), forming our new 3v3 team which will be called Legio X, and running a few battlegrounds.
At the end of the day Cuno's resilience is at 185, health at about 9,200, AP at 1500 and critical strike at about 23%. I have never had resilience before and so I didn't know what to expect from having it - I seemed to live longer in the BGs but I also was not pumping out as much DPS. I imagine one big lesson I need to learn is to find the tipping point between survivability and dealing out the pain.

I'll keep everybody informed on my arena progress.

Oh, and many thanks to Drotara and Lassirra for both having excellent hunter blogs where I can always find valuable information.

Single Tanking Nalorakk

2008-07-24T11:33:00.005-07:00

Sometimes the greatest success comes from fighting through adversity and discovering that something that you once thought impossible is in-fact achievable.

Yesterday Blackthorn went back into Zul'Aman after a few weeks off due to the summer time lull that so many guilds are facing right now. It was fantastic to be raiding with the guild again and we had high hopes to get a little progression in our run.

The most fantastic and thrilling moment of the night came during the battle with Nalorakk. This is a tank-check and requires two fully geared tanks to handle the fight. One tank deals with Nalorakk while he is in bear form and takes the Mangle debuff. The other tank then handles him during his bear form and takes the bleed effects. It is a bit of a dance between tanks taunting the boss off each other at the right moment to prevent any single tank from having both the mangle and bleed effects at the same time which would cause certain doom and a guaranteed wipe, at least that is what everybody thinks.

Last night our troll-form tank died (reason still unknown) at about 80%. Not good. Shouts went out on vent about an imminent wipe and in my head I pictured myself laying in a bloody mess in very short order. It was decision time - call a wipe and get everybody to the door for a speedy recover and reattempt or battle on to see what happens. I shouted to continue.

The next several minutes where chaos as I single tanked the giant bear-avatar. Being a stout dwarf, I had Stoneform to help me as well as healers that were really on their toes. It was close several times as I watched my health plummet to dangerous levels. Every trick in the tanking book was used to get through that fight but in the end I stood and the bear fell. Everybody couldn't believe what had just transpired - it was a not a progression kill for our guild but it was celebrated like one.

As a GM and our raid leader I was thrilled. It is one thing to have a group of people that will take a plan of attack and implement it to perfection but it is quite another to have a group of people that will adjust, think for themselves under pressure and still come out on top when events don't follow a predefined script.

I'll take the latter group of people anyday.

A Dwarf and his Worg Pup

2008-07-23T07:26:00.005-07:00

Gothyelk is not the most sociable dwarf. Don't get me wrong, he is certainly very agreeable and polite, but he prefers long solitary adventures to social settings. Most of his discomfort is the result of being raised by his caring but distracted father in rural and backwards Loch Modan after his mother died while on a shopping trip to Ironforge.

Fastforward and Gothyelk finds himself struggling through Blackrock Spire on yet another adventure. He has no real reason to be in that dark, damp place (his knees are bothering him again) other than to find something that leads to yet another enterprise. He glances around furtively at his traveling companions, strangers really - a self-absorbed night elf, a human that makes far too much noise and a gnome that mistakenly thinks that slaying all the harmless snakes and spiders in the mountain makes him an assassin. Grumble. Well, lets get a move on.

As the rest of the group moves down the hallway in a loud, clattering mess Gothyelk sits for a moment tempted to sneak out the way he came in and call it a day, but a noise from a dark corner catches his attention. With his sword drawn, prepared to strike down any foe that emerges, Gothyelk approaches the source of the sound but instead of an orc, troll or demon Gothyelk discovers a small worg pup huddled alone in the darkness. Without a sounds he picks up the pup under one arm, looks around for his missing companions, and walks out of the mountain.

Since that day the worg pup, which Gothyelk later named Tank, has been his constant companion and friend.

A Giant Soup of Sameness

2008-07-22T07:55:00.005-07:00

Allow me a moment to complain. You see, I don't want my characters to be the same as everybody else's in this game - I enjoy the subtle and not so subtle nuances that make my characters unique and defines them as a class and as a personality. I am extremely troubled by Blizzard's recent trend of merging all classes into a giant soup of sameness and it appears this will only continue with vigor in the upcoming expansion.

Paladin tanks are getting a shield slam, warrior tanks will get an AOE tanking ability, druids get an out-of-combat resurrection spell and a usable form of crowd control.... the list goes on but I will not enumerate them all here, I think you all get it.

But wait, it gets worse. Not only will all classes now have similar abilities and talents but we will all be forced to share the same gear so we will all look exactly the same now as well. The advent of Spellpower will force healers and DPS casters to wear and use the same gear (I don't know about you but I love the way healers look in relation to their DPS brothers and sisters). Itemization and talent changes will force warrior and paladin tanks to wear and use the same gear. I'm sure there are plenty of more examples but I just don't want to dig them up right now.

I'm not entirely sure why they are moving in this direction, but for me it removes some of the game's appeal. I imagine it has a lot to do with balancing PvP as well as listening to people complain about wanting their class to do and be everything. I for one enjoy playing a class and knowing that I have strengths and weaknesses and learning to be successful because of and in spite of them.

Please, please, please let me be different.

Divided by the Vent

2008-07-21T11:47:00.009-07:00

Guilds have different cultures and social practices based on their make-up, size, history, interpersonal relationships and other fairly complex factors. When you take two guilds and crash them into each other through a merger you are bound to see some cultural differences - some will be minor and some will be much larger and will need to be resolved either by officer intervention and guidance or through a more organic process as the guild transforms into its new self.

My current guild Blackthorn (born from the merger of Mors Celeris and Vox Draconis) is experiencing some of these cultural conflicts as we begin to stretch our legs and search for our identity. One of these conflicts is centered around Ventrilo.

At Mors Celeris (my old guild) we never, ever used vent to just hang out and chat while playing. To us vent is something that is used while running an instance or in a raid and that was it. It is a tool during those circumstances and when not engaged in those activities we found no need to sit and chat in vent for hours on end. To Vox Draconis (the other half of Blackthorn) however vent is simply an exension of the game - if you are logged into Warcraft you are logged into vent. It doesn't matter if you are sitting in Ironforge doing nothing, farming or running quests. They sit in vent and chat about movies, baseball, jobs, girlfriends/boyfriends, politics, etc.

This has led to a situation where half of the guild hangs out on our vent server chatting while the other half has no desire to do so (I for one have no interest chatting in vent with guild members while I play - I wouldn't even know what to talk about). Those that are not in vent are seen as unfriendly and unsociable by those that are and those that are in vent are viewed by those that are not as annoying and self-absorbed.

Compounding the issue is that I am the Guildmaster of Blackthorn and some see my absence on our vent server whenever I am logged in as either a snub or, worse, a sign that I am unapproachable and uncommitted to getting to know everybody. It is neither of those things of course, but perception often has the power of truth.

I'm not sure how to handle this current bump in our road.

The Things You See When You Really Look

2008-07-20T15:49:00.005-07:00

I took some time today to do a little PvP with Cunobelinus and while standing around the Battle Masters waiting for my battleground to begin a certain hunter stood out to me that I just had to inspect because what he was wearing looked rather odd. What I found was totally shocking but yet not astonishing.

Gimlinn, it appears, has acquired enough honor to get his season two helm and spaulders but couldn't give a damn about the rest of his gear (until he amasses more honor I am guessing). What I saw was those two epics and a whole lot of level 64 and level 68 greens "of the bandit" and a couple blues from early quests. I'm not picking on Gimlinn and I didn't laugh - this made me sad.

I have seen this more and more recently: players in nearly full greens with perhaps a single PvP epic they acquired through getting slaughtered over and over and over again in battlegrounds. They have stick-to-it-ivness, I'll give them that. But certainly one welfare (not my term) epic at a time is not the most efficient way to get oneself geared. Perhaps they have given up on PvE altogether but a few quests, some reputation rewards and some dungeon drops would restore some of their pride in their gear I would think (not to mention improve thier performance).

I'm just not sure that I get how one epic and five greens is a good thing. /sigh

A Date With Void Reaver

2008-07-19T13:14:00.006-07:00

Another first for Gothyelk as he stepped inside Tempest Keep last night with Emerald Raiders as the main tank. The objective for the evening was simply to gain some experience and down Void Reaver.

I am always excited with new content and last night was no exception. I loved the atmosphere inside the Keep and thought that Al'ar was just gorgeous. Do I really have to kill that beautiful phoenix?

Trash fights were definitely a step up in difficulty from Serpentshrine Cavern. We wiped several times on trash as only a few people in the raid had ever seen them before. I enjoyed 'playing centerfield' on several pulls while I kept a close and watchful eye on mobs that had been polymorphed by our mages or banished by our warlocks. I would grab them jsut in case getting that back into a CC was a little slow.

Void Reaver (why in my head did I always think this boss was a giant Voidwalker?) didn't do any significant damage to the tanks and was fairly simple once everybody learned the fight and remembered how to keep an eye on Omen. Not sure why that Shadow Priest wanted to die so often...
My Tier 5 shoulders didn't drop but that really wasn't the point of the night. It was a blast.

WotLK and Paladins: Some Tidbits

2008-07-18T12:21:00.007-07:00

The NDA for the WotLK content has been lifted and sites like MMO Champion are posting lots of fun new things to think about for the upcoming expansion. While I like surprises, it is nice to have a little bit of information so we can prepare, get excited and of course worry.

Three things caught my eye that I wanted to touch on here:

1. The new Druid spell Replenish is a little troublesome to me as a paladin tank. Where is my benefit from this spell? Druid, warrior and Death Knight tanks all get a nice bonus to help them maintain threat and use abilities - Rage and Runic Power. Paladin tanks will get 2% mana returned to us through Replenish but wait, we already have Spiritual Attunement. Mana for a paladin tank is not an issue. Either this druid healing spell is terribly anti-paladin or they are going to be doing something with Spiritual Attunement.

2. I knew that hefting the mining pick around with me through all of Azeroth and Outland all these years would finally pay-off. Apparently swinging away has resulted in a very fit dwarf. I love the new Toughness ability that miners will receive in the expansion. A nice buff of 35 stamina to a tank without having to use a talent or gear allocation is a beautiful thing.

3. In the Beta notes I found this little gem that has me puzzled: "Blessing of Salvation renamed Hand of Salvation, now reduces total threat on the target by 2% per second for 10 seconds while also reducing all damage and healing done by 10%. Only one Hand spell can be on the target per paladin at any one time. Now costs 6% of base mana." So basically our most used and effective blessing in raids and instances is removed and we get what equates to reverse of the hunter's Misdirection. I don't like it, at least at face value. It also apears that spells will now cost a percentage of your total base mana pool rather than a fixed amount. How is that even remotely fair? As I increase my mana pool through gear and buffs the price I am paying for spells also increases without any benefit - in other words it is a stalemate.

New paladin talents for WotLK have not been released as of yet due to the fact that they are apparently completely reworking our class (again), but I am not going to start yelling that the sky is falling just yet. There are some things that have me really worried, or at least concerned, but we don't yet have the entire picture so I will wait to see what happens.

One Hell of a Night

2008-07-17T17:14:00.004-07:00

I took Cunobelinus into Karazhan last night for a full guild run and wow what a night. It was a fantastic run with only a single wipe due to the person that could interrupt Julianne's heals kept missing them and everybody ran completely out of mana. He apologized profusely and we moved on.

I went in hoping to nab any of the three sweet Kara weapons to replace my trusty Telescopic Sharprifle but came out with much, much more. Cuno strolled out of Karazhan last night with the following treasures:

Romulo's Poison Vial
Garona's Signet Ring
Demon Stalker Gauntlents
Skulker's Greaves

That is a whopping 81 hit on just the trinket, ring and greaves. Needless to say I was way, way, way over the hit cap when the dust settled which means only one thing: time to spend gold on new gems. Out with the + hit gems and in with the + agility gems.

That puts Cunobelinus well over 1800 AP, 25% crit and hit capped. Not bad.

Señor Gothyelk

2008-07-16T15:51:00.005-07:00

I had a little fun today gathering up my latest outfit for Gothyelk. Some tailoring from his friend Shaeönanra and a quick run into heroic Old Hillsbrad to to pick up Don Carlos' Famous Hat and the new me is complete. Bueno.

Say hello to Señor Gothyelk. He's a lover, not a fighter. But he is also a fighter, so don't get any ideas.

Warcraft in the Real World

2008-07-15T06:57:00.006-07:00

When I saw the above headline in the local paper this morning while walking to the office my initial reaction was "I wonder which gloves dropped and who won the roll". It took a second look to realize I wasn't actually reading Warcraft content. This kind of stuff ever happen to you?

Paladin Tanking Consumables Checklist

2008-07-14T08:40:00.020-07:00

This is a list of consumables I take to a raid as a Paladin tank. Not all of these will be used but they are always in my bags for certain circumstances.

Stamina Food: 2 Stacks
This is a staple and no tank should ever, ever be without this buff. We spend hundreds of gold and hours of effort to eek out as much stamina as possible in gems, gear and enchants and all this takes is to sit down and have a little snack. I use either Fisherman's Feast or Spicy Crawdad.

Spell Damage Food: 1 Stack
I carry these for those times in a raid when I need just that little bit of extra threat. These are also used for heroic dungeons to speed things up a bit. I use Blackened Basilisk since I don't fish but I understand that Poached Bluefish is just as tasty.

Flask of Fortification: 5
These really are the cornerstone of my consumables for raids. As any tank knows the 500 HP is a huge benefit and the 10 defense gives a really nice boost to your other tanking stats. These are expensive but they will persist through death.

Greater Arcane Elixir: 10
There are times in a raid when I will not want to use a flask (on trash and some farm content for example), instead choosing to use a guardian and battle elixir. The added threat from this battle elixir is very nice to have and sometimes even necessary.

Elixir of Major Defense: 10
Damage mitigation is one of the primary goals of a tank and these little beauties do a pretty nice job at that. 500 armor is a beautiful thing to a tank.

Greater Stoneshield Potion: 5
These are great to have when the incoming melee damage is through the roof and you need another method to mitigate it (think Prince phase two). Be careful though, these share a two minute cooldown with healing and mana potions so use smartly.

Super Healing Potion: 1 Stack
Honestly, these are not used all that often but as a tank you had better not be without this important consumable. Rather than using them as a last minute panic button I tend to use them when I sense the healers are being over-taxed and could use a little buffer to get caught up again.

Super Mana Potion: 2 Stacks
This are invaluable to a paladin tank. Sure, we get mana back as we get healed, but believe me, there will be times when you will be chugging these things in an effort to keep your threat up. If you run out of mana you and the raid you are protecting are dead.

Superior Wizard Oil: 10 Charges
Speaking of threat, there is no better place to stack spell-damage as a paladin tank than your weapon. This consumable will add a nice chunk of threat without having to sacrifice other important tanking stats on your armor.

Nightmare Seed: 1 Stack
These are the little known and often ignored consumable for tanks. They offer a very nice HP boost that will allow your healers to catch up to the incoming damage. I get mine for free from my friendly herbalist but I admit I sometimes forget I even have them. TankingTips has a nice write up on these seeds for more information.

Scroll of Protection V: 1 Stack
Scrolls are also often overlooked when preparing for a raid. Like the defense elixir, these will give you that little bit of extra mitigation that could mean the difference between success and a wipe. I am not listing stamina scrolls on the list because they will not stack with a priest's fortitude buff making them useless in a raid environment.

Symbol of Kings: 3 Stacks
People are going to be expecting buffs and we have some good ones. I always carry more than enough to avoid the embarrassment of running out and the tediousness that would follow of keeping ten minute blessings up for the remaining raid time.

That is a lot of consumables to lug around as a tank and manage during a raid and boss fights. But the fact is these are part of our tool set and they cannot be ignored.

Soloing as Protection: My Gear Analysis

2008-07-08T11:16:00.008-07:00

Like any good Paladin I have been collecting various gear sets as I have adventured across Outland - multiple tanking sets, a healing set, spell damage set and even a melee retribution set. One topic of conversation that regularly comes up in secret Paladin tanking circles is "what is the best way to do DPS as a protection spec paladin when I am soloing (edit: single mobs) - stacking spell power or stacking attack power?". I decided to find out.

I understand that what follows is not extremely scientific and the sample size is small so please bear with me. I hauled three soloing sets of gear with me up to Legion Point in Shadowmoon Valley to test which set has the quickest kill time on mobs. The results are going to be more useful to me and my specific gear sets and really not meant to draw and general conclusions - but perhaps some insights can be gained.

The Constants
I was buffed with Blessing of Kings and Righteous Fury during the entire test. Any buff received after killing a mob (Combat Gallantry for example) was removed before the next pull. Each pull was of a single level 68 Wrathwalker and always started with Judgment of Righteousness. Seal of Righteousness was up the entire fight and always judged when the cool down was up. For those gear sets that utilize a shield Holy Shield was active during the entire fight.

Tanking Set (control)
Spell Damage: 446
Attack Power: 470

Mob	Time	DPS
1	22.28	218.9
2	19.48	228.9
3	19.94	241.3
4	22.97	225.0
5	21.11	233.7

Spell Damage Set: 1-handed Weapon
Spell Damage: 649
Attack Power: 470

Mob	Time	DPS
1	14.77	296.7
2	21.00	270.0
3	19.45	295.0
4	18.60	253.9
5	18.76	256.3

Retribution Set: 2-Handed Weapon
Spell Damage: 0
Attack Power: 1882

Mob	Time	DPS
1	18.31	282.2
2	19.73	249.9
3	17.72	281.1
4	15.16	317.3
5	16.19	297.4

The Results

Gear Set	Average Time	Average DPS
Tank	21.15	229.56
Spell Damage	18.52	271.38
Retribution	17.42	285.58

Currently, the advice given to most tanks is to stack spell damage when soloing. My results are different as clearly my retribution set gets me through mobs quicker than the other two (but not by much). Is my retribution set that much better than my spell damage set? Maybe a little bit but both have been gathered and cared for as equally as possible. If I had 1,000 spell damage then clearly the results would be different. I wonder at what spell damage and attack power values the two sets would become equal.

One thing is for certain - my DPS is laughable no matter what gear I wear.

Epic Failure Means Change Something

2008-07-07T11:52:00.006-07:00

I'm getting tired of Gruul's Lair. It isn't the most exciting place in our little fantasy world - a short little dark cave, some ugly rock formations and very few fights really. But I keep going back because I really, really want/need the Aldori Legacy Defender. I just know that brute has it hidden in that cave somewhere.

Yesterday was my weekly run through Gruuls with Emerald Raiders and it was a disaster. Normally this place isn't a problem for any group we put together but for some reason we could not kill the Dragonslayer yesterday. Twice we had him down to about 6% and twice he laughed and mocked our raid. We wiped four times on Gruul before calling it a day.

The Wipe-Cycle
What was frustrating about the day, at least to me, was that there was no discussion or analysis between attempts. There was zero effort to discover our core problem. We put our raid on a road to failure, all the road signs pointed to failure, and never once did we try to get off that doomed road.

Wipe > Run back > Buff > Pull > Wipe

That is an endless loop that I call the Wipe-Cycle. It contains no analysis. If you ever find yourself in a raid caught in that maelstrom then do something. Banging your head against the wall again and again will only give you a headache (and a huge repair bill). Pause and take the time to make some analysis about the cause of the failure. Talk over the fight with everybody - listen to the healers and tanks who will often have some good perspective as to what happened because of their roles. Often the causation will be obvious and the fixing that single issue will result in a successful outcome.

Change Something
I have found that sometimes the exact cause for raid failure is unclear - it just didn't work. What do you do then? Well, you don't want to make any knee-jerk reactions, but sometimes you just have to change something to get out of the Wipe-Cycle. Assign different healers to different roles, change the tank, change the make-up of the raid groups - anything that will alter your raid's angle of attack, even by the slightest amount. You will be surprised at how often making a change that seems trivial and insignificant will lead to what you were planning for all along - success.

A static raid that does not react and change is a dead raid. By adding two steps to a normal cycle a raid become dynamic and powerful.

Wipe > Run back > Analysis > Implement Changes >Buff > Pull

It seems obvious, but in the heat of battle you would be surprised...

Gothyelk Has Nothing to Do

2008-07-03T13:04:00.004-07:00

When not tanking a raid, which I love, Gothyelk has nothing to do. I don't need badges for anything, I have plenty of gold and there are no materials that I need to farm. This leads to a bit of a problem - I don't play Gothyelk except for scheduled raids. I want to play Gothyelk more, I love him, but I end up logging in to hang out in Shattrath for about twenty minutes before I log out and get Cunobelinus...

Cunobelinus has plenty to do but I am having a bit of guilt playing him so much lately at the exclusion of Gothyelk.

I don't want Goth to become an alt, know what I mean? What do other people do when their main is basically in raid-only mode to stay connected to that character?

Fantastically and Totally Epic

2008-06-30T17:52:00.005-07:00

Cunobelinus has been dutifully saving up honor since he was just a young hunter - knowing very well that the day would come when he would want some piece of gear that would require he have lots of it. Well today he spent it on the beautiful Merciless Gladiator's Chain Spaulders. I am not a PvP player - it is fun for a bit as a distraction, but I prefer PvE and I certainly prefer PvE gear but I had the honor and I needed an upgrade on the shoulders... plus these things make a dwarf with a beard and a dragon on his head look fantastically and totally epic.

I lost some hit rating that the Blackend Leather Spaulders had which means that I am no longer at the hit cap. Putting +hit gems in the PvP shoulders just didn't seem right to me for some reason so I socketed them with two Delicate Living Rubies.

Cuno will be eating a healthy diet of Spicy Hot Talbuk until he can find some +hit somewhere.

Deeper into Serpentshrine Cavern

2008-06-29T11:40:00.008-07:00

I spent yesterday evening, like I do most Saturday evening recently, venturing into SSC. The raid agenda called for downing Lurker again and then heading over to get our first look at Tidewalker. I was excited to once again start the process of learning a new fight and all its stratagems.

Lurker presented no problem for us. Its funny how a raid can spend so much time being absolutely crushed while learning a boss fight and then suddenly - click! - everybody gets it and from there on out you wonder how on earth this big pansy gave you so much trouble. I had that same feeling with Moroes back in my Karazhan days - after our first look at him I thought our raiding would end right there that night and we would never go any further.

I made a terrible mistake on the very first trash pull on our way to Morogrim. I was assigned to tank the Greyheart Skulker and hold him while other targets were killed. Our mages had dutifully polymorphed the Greyheart Nether-Mages pretty close to me. I went to hit the number-4 key on my keyboard to judge my Seal of Righteousness on the Skulker as I got him into place and my finger slipped over to the number-3 key! Well, that number-3 key is mapped to consecrate - big problem. Suddenly both Nether-Mages were loose and before they could be dealt with I was dead and soon the raid was wiped. I fessed-up in vent and apologized. Bad tank.

From there it was an easy road to Tidewalker. As expected I was assigned to pick up and tank the murloc adds as our warrior tanked Morogrim. The strategy involved me standing down the ramp a bit spamming Flash Heal on a life-tapping warlock to grab some healing aggro, all the murlocs would run to me, mix in consecration and we have a total win. Concept sounded fine but it failed - I just could not get all the adds on me that way. I suggested that all range simply bunch up together with me in the middle spamming consecrate as the murlocs came running. This worked very well for the most part. Healers were still too spread out and would have initial aggro so it wasn't perfect. There has to be a better way for a single Paladin tank to grab both packs of murlocs.

We got Tidewalker down to about 40% on our best effort. Not bad if you ask me. The warrior tank kept whispering me that he was getting hit so hard he felt squishy. I'm looking forward to next week and making some more attempts. I just know the big guy is the very sexy Ring of Sundered Souls for me.

The Blackthorn Success

2008-06-26T12:52:00.003-07:00

I have been a little quiet about the new guild lately becasue I wanted to let it play out a bit before I passed any early judgements. There was some fear on both sides of the table that as we brought two long-standing guilds together things would simply crumble and fall apart as a result of pride, pettiness or clash of personalities. I'm happy to report that none of that happened and Blackthorn is alive and well. That isn't to say there hasn't been some growing pains as everybody in the guild tests the new boundaries and power vacuums are filled. There have been some core players that have been on much less since the merger but I imagine they will come around.

We held our guild commencement (yes, we like to roleplay a little) the other day in the catacombs of the Stormwind cathedral. Officers were sworn in, vows were made and speeches given. I made the following remarks:

Blackthorn! I come among you to look you firmly in your eyes, feel your temperature and break the silence which is dear to-me, especially in wartime. Have you ever asked yourselves in an hour of meditation, which every one finds during the day, how long we have been at war? How long have we as brothers and sisters stood against the spears and swords and flames and torment of our enemies? The answer is this: We have fought the endless fight. Each of you here in this solemn assembly have stood shoulder to shoulder together against the mighty winds of the Horde, the Scourge, the Burning Legion, the Illidari and others that I will not name here tonight. To stand against such winds as these makes one weary. We grew tired.

But from the bleary eyes of slumber we have given birth to a new Bulwark in which we will find our shelter and our renewed strength. The fist of Blackthorn will be feared among our enemies and the name Blackthorn will be whispered in dark places from Stormwind to Ironforge as men seek to uncover our secrets. We are renewed. We are reborn. Set your eyes to greater things, for within Blackthorn all is possible.

Our people, the people of Blackthorn deserve and will have victory. The hardships, suffering and sacrifices that we have faced with exemplary courage and dignity will have their day of compensation when all the enemy forces are crushed on the battlefields by the heroism of our soldiers and a triple, immense cry will cross the mountains and oceans like lightning and light new hopes and give new certainties to spirit multitudes: Victory!

I feel sure that our cause will not be suffered to fail among men. I feel entitled at this juncture, at this time, say, "Come then, let us go forward together with our united strength."

We have begun raiding as a combined guild with great success including our first kill of Jal'alai last night. The Bulwark of the Amani Empire dropped but it went to the other tank. We are going to be starting Tier5 content next month.

Midsummer Madness & Killing Lurker

2008-06-22T07:59:00.004-07:00

Normally I am not one of the fellows that enjoys the festive holidays of Azeroth. I don't go to the Darkmoon Faire, I don't own a romantic picnic basket and I never, ever transform my my war mount into some pansy reindeer. But yesterday I had some time to kill before a SSC raid and so I let a friend talk me into doing some of the Midsummer Fire Festival quests.

We ran around a bit speaking to Keepers of the Flame when I was asked by one to juggle some flaming sticks for some reason. It wasn't long before I was cursing - how could blizzard design such a terribly frustrating game experience? The point was to throw this flaming stick into the air and then follow the shadow on the ground to catch it again. Problems: You can't really see the shadow on the ground and other people are throwing their silly sticks to the exact same location so you have no clue which one is yours to catch. Completing this task took me nearly thirty minutes. It made a grown man weep and curse. Shame on you Blizzard.

The real goal was to get into Slave Pens to summon the seasonal boss Lord Ahune. He drops some pretty cool stuff I guess but was a little tougher than I had expected. I did get a sassy new Tabard (I collect tabards) to wear to the SSC raid later that day, so I was pleased with the end result.

Speaking of the SSC raid - it went flawlessly. Our target was Lurker and we one-shotted that big fish. It was my first tier-5 boss kill and it felt prety good to be main tanking it.

A Hunter Goes to Karazhan

2008-06-18T09:02:00.010-07:00

I had an absolute blast last night as I took Cunobelinus into Karazhan for the very first time. I was a little nervous having never played a DPS role in that dark tower, but I was well prepared I thought. I had a bag full Grilled Mudfish, Elixirs of Greater Agility, Kibler's Bits and Superior Mana Oil. I even splurged and bought a quiver full of Warden's Arrows.

I was running with a group from Emeral Raiders - many of whom are experienced T4/T5 raiders and were having fun with some lesser-geared alts. The run was super smooth and we one-shotted Attumen, Moroes, Maiden, Opera and Curator.

Now that I am playing a damage-dealing class I am paying far more attention to the WWS reports. I enjoy tweaking my set-up, shot rotation and gear to eek out every last drop of sexy DPS goodness. I was using a 3:2 shot rotation/Kill Command macro last night and was kicking out these numbers:

+ Attumen: 761 DPS
+ Moroes: 626 DPS
+ Maiden: 875 DPS
+ Romulo: 885 DPS
+ Curator: 608 DPS
+ Trash: 613 DPS

Not bad for a dwarf in some crafted epics, quest blues and a couple greens. If you are interested you can examine the full WWS raid report. One thing I am still unsure about is when, if and how I should weave Arcane Shot into the mix when using a Steady/Auto shot rotation macro. When I try an Arcane shot it seems to mess with the rhythm of everything else so most of the time I don't even bother.

I didn't get any new gear last night from Kara. The Beastmaw Pauldrons dropped and wouldn't you know it, I lost the roll to the same hunter that beat me out for the Beast Lord Mantle just the week before. That just isn't right and he is now officially my nemesis.

Dumbing it Down

2008-06-17T06:32:00.003-07:00

I was sitting in Shattrath last night with a little time on my hands wondering what to do when a Moonkin friend and guildie who needed some badges suggested we run the daily heroic dungeon. I haven't run a heroic in awhile - I don't need any of the badge gear and I've been using my badges on epic gems, and so I agreed thinking it would be fun to stretch my legs a bit. We picked up a shadow priest and a holy priest from our guild and grabbed a hunter out of LFG and we were on our way to the Underbog.

It didn't take us long to realize that there wasn't anything in the entire cavern that was even going to come close to hurting us, let alone kill us. I would pull multiple packs of mobs and my health would barely dip. My healer was utterly bored and began to complain about a tank that took no damage.

Lets have some fun. I reached into my backpack and swapped out my Justicar Faceguard for my sassy Dilapidated Cloth Hat. I still didn't take much damage at all but I was doing it while looking like Indiana Jones.

Next time I'm going to tank that place without any pants on.

Everything Seems out of Order

2008-06-16T13:04:00.005-07:00

When I hit 70 for the first time on Gothyelk it was a grand occasion - I had worked so hard for so long that finally reaching that milestone was a huge accomplishment for me. What was nice at the time was that I had a clear path to follow and progress at the level cap: Level 70 Dungeons -> Heroics -> Karazhan. Each step clearly led you to the next. And beause Gothyelk hit 70 fairly early in the Burning Crusade cycle there was also a pretty clear reputation grind path to follow as well: Scryer (and other major outland factions) -> Ogrila, Skyguard -> Shattered Sun Offensive. They came in sequence, I was exalted with Scryers before SSO was even released.

Now that Cunobelinus is level 70 I am noticing a huge problem for those coming late to the level cap: there is simply far too much to do and no real progression path to follow. All of this content isn't being fed to me in patch releases - it is all there right now and I have to do it all. I haven't quested in Netherstorm at all, I have a ton of factions I need to get reputation with, there are the dailies and a bunch of dungeons I want to do. Every time I log on I'm not exactly certain what I should be doing, where with Gothyelk it was pretty clear at all times.

Combine that with the fact the I had a warehouse of gold and load experience from my previous venture into the end game that Cuno had it pretty easy. Epic quality crafted items went on nearly as soon as he hit 70. He was pretty well geared from the drop of the hat. I am going to Karazhan tomorrow with Cuno without ever having run Shadow Labyrinth with him. I am going to start running heroics now to collect badges instead of running Botanica or Arcatraz over and over for drops I would have needed in the past to progress and get ready for Kara. Everything seems out of order and it is freaking me out a little bit.

Alt angst I suppose...

Balancing the Random with Rewards for Effort

2008-06-13T11:56:00.004-07:00

This has been much talk recently over the much maligned random number generator (RNG) within Warcraft and its role in loot drops and rewards within dungeons.

Opponents of the RNG argue that battling your way through a dungeon, successfully downing every pull and then executing a flawless strategy to kill a boss should net you some gain in terms of a gear drop. It doesn't matter that your healer or DPS were rewarded with a nice upgrade because in a game of pick-up-groups (PUGs) and short-lived relationships this is a zero-sum outcome for most people. The RNG leads often forces people to run an instance 20, 30, or more times in the hope of getting a desirable piece of gear. 'Give us something for our effort' they cry.

This is, in part, what lead to the development of the heroic badges. Collect enough and you can shop for whatever you need. There has been talk that the badge system will be modified and extended in the upcoming expansion.

I personally think that loot distribution by RNG should be left in game to some degree. There is a sense of excitement and hope as you fight a boss - perhaps this is the time he is carrying your little pretties. There is a thrill that as his (or her) body hits the ground you hesitate to check the loot, becasue you are not sure if you really want to know. The RNG also facilitates a sense of unity of purpose within guilds. One is killing this boss for the many. The loot he drops will not be equipped by myself, but it will be equipped by my guild and we will wield it together. I like that feeling. It is a selfless act.

My Solution
I would suggest that the RNG be kept in place for all dungeon bosses except for the final bosses. These preliminary bosses will still have loot tables and a random roll will be used by the game to determine which piece(s) are rewards to the adventurers.

The final boss in any dungeon, instead of using the RNG to distribute loot drops, will drop a token for each person in the group. This instance-specific token can then be exchanged at a vendor for a single item from that bosses loot table. There would be no reason or need to horde or collect these tokens because it is a one-to-one exchange. On their first time through a dungeon, players will be guaranteed at least one item appropriate to their class and spec if their group is able to kill the final boss (and such an item exists on the loot table).

I think this compromise is exciting. What are your thoughts?

The Rise of Blackthorn

2008-06-12T06:44:00.009-07:00

For those that have been reading my blog for awhile you know of some of the struggles I have been faced with regarding the guild, its politics and drama. But to recap: small guild, difficult to progress into content, people leaving, apathy. That about sums it up. I haven't posted about the guild or its goings-on recently becasue I have been busy weaving a plan that will make everybody happy. Last night that plan became reality.

Mors Celeris and Vox Draconis have merged into a new guild. The new guild will be known throughout Azeroth and Outland as Blackthorn.

We have had a long-term alliance with Vox Draconis, they are good people and this just felt right. This merger, while difficult to give up what we had built at Mors Celeris, is a happy occasion and it will allow us the freedom to have more fun, meet new friends and have a guild channel that is full of people (we are more than doubling our numbers once we get everybody moved over). We are planning on jumping into some 25-man raids as a guild very soon. I will still be the guild leader of the new guild and I know that this merger is not the end of all troubles or drama - this isn't nirvana. This is an opportunity and we have seized it.

I was thrilled and excited last night as the Blackthorn charter was signed at 9:00 p.m. Emerald Dream Standard Time at a big party in Ironforge. Donations started rolling in immediately and we were able to purchase all the available guild bank tabs within the first 15 minutes. People from both of the old guilds seemed happy.

Expect great things from Blackthorn.
----------------------
Blackthorn
Blackthorn is depicted in many fairytales throughout Europe as a tree of ill omen. Called Straif in the Ogham, this tree has the most sinister reputation in Celtic tree lore. The English word “strife” is said to derive from this Celtic word. A long hard winter is referred to as a Blackthorn Winter.

To Witches, it often represents the dark side of the Craft. It is a sacred tree to the Dark, or Crone aspect of the Triple Goddess, and represents the Waning and Dark Moons. Blackthorn is known as “the increaser and keeper of dark secrets”. The tree is linked with warfare, wounding and death, associated with the Scottish Cailleach - the Crone of Death, and the Irish Morrigan. In Scotland, winter begins when the Cailleach (also the Goddess of Winter) strikes the ground with Her Blackthorn staff.

Blackthorn was often used for “binding and blasting.” A black rod is a Blackthorn wand with fixed thorns on the end, used to cause harm to others. In British folklore, a Witch will use a Blackthorn in rituals of cursing. The sharp thorns were reputedly used by English witches to pierce poppets in their curses, called the “pins of slumber”.

Blackthorn can be used in spells of protection as well. In Irish tales, heroes were aided by the Blackthorn tree - if they threw a twig of Blackthorn after them, it would take root and form an impenetrable hedge or woods, thwarting the pursuing giant. In England Witches would carve the Norse rune thorn on a Blackthorn stave for protection.

Why You Don't Invite Other Hunters to Your Steamvaults Group

2008-06-09T08:59:00.008-07:00

Cunobelinus grabbed his bow and a stack of arrows last night for a PUG run into Steamvaults. He had never been there before and so wanted to be able to check it off his list, but make no mistake, he was there for one reason and one reason only: the Beast Lord Mantle. The run was smooth for the most part and I was chain trapping angry mobs like a champion. To my joy the Mantle dropped, but what the hell was I thinking? I had allowed another hunter to sneak into the group and I would now pay for that mistake. I rolled a 16. I may never see it drop again. /sigh

I am still getting used to playing a DPS class and how to read the WWS reports for hunters correctly to gather meaningful information, so any insights would be welcome.

It is fun to be on the top of the chart (albeit a small chart). I was using a 3:2 shot rotation macro. I think my DPS numbers are pretty good for where I am in the game currently, but I have no real way of knowing. If anybody with hunter knowledge would like to comment on my WWS stats from last night I would appreciate it.

I sent that other hunter on his way with some shiny new shoulder armor but at least I didn't let him out damage me.

Paladin Blessings and Burger King

2008-06-08T08:12:00.004-07:00

I was in a SSC raid yesterday afternoon that contained only two paladins, myself and a Holy pally. Together we agreed that I would put Blessing of Salvation on most classes (hunters and our only warrior got Blessing of Might) and she would bless everybody with Blessing of Kings. Seemed like a good plan for a raid with only the two of us.

It wasn't long before raid chat was filled with custom orders.
Holy Priest: "Can I get Blessing of Wisdom instead of Salvation?"
Fire Mage: "Can I please get Wisdom instead of Kings"
There's more, like the Shadow Priest that doesn't feel that he needs Salvation, but you get the idea.

Generally, if a class contains a healing spec and a caster spec (priests and druids) they are going to get Salvation. It is a simple risk assessment: give the healers a little extra mana or let those Shadow Priests and Moonkins pull aggro and wipe the raid. Simple choice.

Now for a class like the mage it isn't as simple for us paladins. Some mages will prefer Kings while others will prefer Blessing of Wisdom. If all the mages in the raid agree on one blessing over another then us Paladins, being a reasonable and enlightened group of people, will happily bow to the wishes of the class as a whole. After all, they know what will benefit themselves and their performance more than we do.

Now, what i will not do is hand out individual ten-minute blessings to half the raid for three hours to make people happy. I am not Burger King. I have other important things to be thinking about and I don't have the time to be doing that every other pull (let alone remember who wanted what). When we get to the boss I may throw out a few lesser blessings to people, but that is as far as I go with this.

Am I being unreasonable? What do you other Paladins do in this situation?

I'm Seventy Baby!

2008-06-05T21:39:00.008-07:00

It was a big day as Cunobelinus finally reached the level 70 mark. What did he do to celebrate?

Bought a gorgeous Ebon Gryphon
Finished the quest for the Stalker's Helmet of Second Sight
Equipped the full 3-piece Felstalker Armor set I had crafted and waiting in the bank
Equipped the ugly yet functional Blackened Leather Spaulders
Traded my old gun in for the beautiful Valano's Longbow
Pulled on a pair of the Leggings of Beast Mastery
Headed out to the Isle of Quel'Danas to volunteer for Shattered Sun Offensive grunt work

Cuno is currently sitting at 1476 AP, 18.48% crit chance and 118 hit rating. But the thing is I don't know if those are average stats for where I am now of if I am ahead of the curve. Also, I am putting (or plan on putting) mostly Glinting Noble Topaz in sockets until I reach the hit cap. Is that the smartest thing to do?

Oh, and one more thing. You have to be super, super smart to play a hunter. There is this spreadsheet that will absolutely blow your mind.

I Resist Your Nature Damage

2008-06-04T12:36:00.003-07:00

Sometime during my grind for the mats to craft a nature resist tanking set (which is finally complete) it dawned on me that I was putting all of this work and gold into a really nice tanking set that is so specific, so niche, that I will only be using it for a single boss fight - Hydross.

Now, this Hydross drops zero gear that I desire, so why am I doing it? Well two reasons really: first, I like to be in there tanking anything and everything that can be tanked. I like the challenge and I like to experience new fights and content. Secondly, he drops plenty of gorgeous epic loot that the other people in my raid would love to get their hands on and so I do it for them.

Call it a sense of duty. That is just how I roll. Plus, I like looking like a superhero.

Was I Handed A Secret Key?

2008-06-02T07:39:00.009-07:00

I play on a PvP server, and while this has lead to a healthy amount of paranoia and an unfathomable amount of frustration at times, I have enjoyed the heightened sense of dread and heart-pounding fear while questing or when farming for primals or other materials.

But I have noticed a change recently. Undead warlocks are waving at me, Blood Elf rogues will suddenly appear only to aid me in killing the monster I am fighting and Troll hunters and their pets simply turn and run in the opposite direction. Did somebody flip the PvP switch? Because normally I am dead-meat whenever a horde of any worth wanders in my direction (granted it takes them forever to kill me).

I have a theory. When I was granted my new fancy title as Champion of the Naaru I was actually handed the key to the Warcraft executive washroom. Apparently the Horde now view me differently - either out of respect for my title or out of fear for what that title may mean they keep their distance or go out of their way to be nice to me. I am enjoying the new freedom.

Has anybody else noticed this?

Into the Black Depths

2008-06-01T08:15:00.009-07:00

Gothyelk spent most of yesterday afternoon standing toe to toe with smelly Naga and a giant fish that wanted nothing more than to kill him and twenty four of his closest friends. It was my very first adventure into the depths of Serpentshrine Cavern and I have to say that I loved the experience.

Our objective for the day was Lurker and so after easily clearing pulls to Hydross we all tip-toed past the angry Water Elemental to begin our trek toward the submerged Leviathan. I thouroughly enjoyed the pulls to Lurker - there were lots of mobs and just enough chaos to make things interesting, but we had a good plan in place that saw us through easily. Both Priestesses and one Technician would be polymorphed, off tanks would pick up the Shatterers and I would tank the Honor Guard and usually one or two of the remaining technicians in the middle of the platform. Hunters would burn down the Technicians while everybody else picked off the Shatterers. We would then kill the Honor Guard and then I would pick up the sheeped targets one by one. Rinse and repeat six times. I still don't understand why DPS (usually a mage or hunter) feels like it is okay for them to break the CC before the tank gets there to do it - surely the ensuing chaos and deaths point to the fact that it isn't a good idea. /sigh

And then we were on the platforms discussing the strategy for The Lurker Below. Our raid leader did a great job of patiently explaining everything (I just love a raid boss that you have to fish up out of the water). The Lurker battle is complicated and involoves getting in and out of the water quickly and taking care of the adds on each platform. It seems that it would be a fairly easy fight once the group has everything down but we never did figure it out and wiped on every attempt.

We did improve on each attempt and I'm sure we can get this fish next week. I did learn that I need to be going forward into the water during Whirl and Spout rather than backwards (away from Lurker) - I think that me going backwards was leaving nobody in melee range and the Great Fish doesn't like that and so he kills a great number of people in the raid rather quickly.

After several failed attempts the vicious fish in the water returned to life making any more attempts impossible unless we went back and re-cleared all the trash mobs again. The raid was called, a few Nether Vortexes were handed out and we made a vow to return next week.

For those curious I use the following raid buffs:
Flask of Fortification
Spicy Crawdad or Fisherman's Feast
Scroll of Protection V

I've Killed the Lot of Them

2008-05-31T08:56:00.004-07:00

If I ever, ever have to kill another Clefthoof Bull I may actually vomit. I've spent the last couple of days trying to skill up Cunobelinus in Leatherworking. My original goal was to have a 375 skill before I hit level 70 and a bank full of some sweet crafted epics waiting for me. Well, I won't have the crafted epics but I will have the skill.

I finally hit 375 today - I got lucky. I leveled the last four points making Thick Clefthoof Boots (yellow item) and I got a point on each and every one! I quickly flew out to pay a visit to my old Dragonscale leatherworking teacher Peter Galen. He was waiting for me. Mr. Galen sat me down and patiently taught me how to craft what I have been longing for: the Ebon Netherscale Breastplate, Ebon Netherscale Bracers and the Ebon Netherscale Belt.

And guess what I get to do now? Kill a boat load of different things to gather the appropriate mats. Well, at least it won't be Clefthoof Bulls.

Big Upcoming Weekend

2008-05-30T10:05:00.006-07:00

This will be a big weekend for for Gothyelk - On Saturday he is main tanking Serpentshrine Cavern for the very first time and on Sunday he will once again be packing his hammer and shield to Gruul's Lair to main tank the brute (can the Aldori Legacy Defender just drop please). I am very excited to get into SSC and to experience some new content I have never seen before.

Our trip into SSC will be largely exploratory and will start with The Lurker Below. I am still working on my nature resist set but it isn't ready yet so we won't be making a stop at Hydross.

I spent 30 badges on two Empyrean Sapphires last night to get two more Solid Empyrean Sapphires cut before I go into SSC. I want every edge I can get.

Wish me luck!

Do I Have Any Alts? Heck Yes I Do!

2008-05-29T07:04:00.007-07:00

I've been asked if I play any other characters besides my beloved Paladin, and well, the answer is yes. I have been hesitant to talk about them much here on The Stoic Guardian because my original intent was to focus on the life and travels of Gothyelk and on Paladin tanking in general. I've re-thought this and am happy to introduce to you today my two alts. I will be posting about them here from time to time to give you a broader picture of what I am doing in-game. And heck, they are a ton of fun!

Shaeönanra, Level 70 Holy Priest

There was a time I really wanted to be a healer. I think I wanted to gain the perspective of tanking from the other side of the coin, plus healers look totally epic and put together when they go out on the town. I leveled Shaeönanra as Holy (despite the screams to level as Shadow) with the sole intent of getting him to 70 as quickly as possible so I could join a larger raiding guild. I zipped through content, made the beautiful Primal Mooncloth set, healed some heroics and eventually did join a raiding guild. My first run in Karazhan with my new guild left a very bitter taste in my mouth - it wasn't a good fit and so I left. Shae is now in Mors Celeris with Gothyelk.

Shae went unplayed for a few months until recently when i dusted him off and healed a heroic for some guildies. It was fun and it felt good to let him go out and play a little. With our guild a little short on healers right now I may be healing from time to time, but it isn't my priority.

Cunobelinus, Level 69 Beast Mastery Hunter

Cunobelinus is my joy right now. I have been playing him a lot lately and he should ding 70 in the next few days. I have absolutely loved leveling Cuno and I took the time to enjoy the content and to really learn the class mechanics (I want to be a good hunter). He has leveled exclusively in the 2-person guild Celts with a friend that plays a mage so we had no difficulty getting quests done. Cuno is currently struggling to get is leatherworking to 375 so he can craft the super sweet Netherscale Armor set for himself.

Cuno's loyal companion and friend is Amairgen. Cuno crept into The Barrens at about level 14 to find this beautiful cat and they have been traveling the globe together ever since. I don't think I could ever use another pet, we have been through so much together and he rarely complains, even during the hard stuff or when I make him do stupid things.

I didn't think I would enjoy DPS as much as I do. It is refreshing to be able to sit back and do as your told and let the tank run the show while putting up some very impressive DPS numbers and chain trapping the hell out of things. I want to raid with Cuno but I'm not sure if he will join a larger guild or raid with Emerald Raiders exclusively when he is ready. Either way, I'm having a blast with this little dwarf.

LOL, WTF!

2008-05-28T08:05:00.001-07:00

Gothyelk, Champion of the Naaru

2008-05-24T20:45:00.009-07:00

It was a fantastic day. I was up at 4 a.m. headed to Rocky Mountain National Park to solo climb the Dragon's Tail Couloir. I summited at 9:10 a.m., stopped and had some french toast and was home in time to get an invite to enter Magtheridon's Lair for the very first time with Emerald Raiders.

I have been wanting one of those fancy titles that you must go out into the world and earn (I admit to smirking at people with the 1,000 gold title 'of the Shattered Sun'). I have been patiently biding my time and slowly chipping away at the requirements for the Champion of the Naaru title and so I was more than willing to grab my hammer and shield to do battle with the great Pit Lord when the call came.

Trash pulls complete without incident and I finally stood face to face with the foul Magtheridon himself. I was given the off-tank assignment once my channeler was dead. The fight was very chaotic but we had a good group. After the cube-clickers got it all sorted out after two wipes we breezed through our third attempt.

Off-tanking as a Paladin is a difficult endevour. I was just not needing enough heals to keep my mana flowing and so I ended up using mana potion after mana potion in my attempt to keep my threat as high as possible. Rhavyn, our main tank today, does a great job and we have become a good tanking team and I enjoy working with him.

I didn't win any of the loot but I didn't care - I was on my way back to Shattrath to be granted the title "Gothyelk, Champion of the Naaru".

That has a nice ring to it, don't you think?

A Decree

2008-05-22T14:48:00.004-07:00

After much internal debate and contemplation I issued a decree today. Yes, a decree, I can do that. I am the Imperator. Our guild is fantastic but is not nearly big enough to do the things we want to do. We have talked about merging with another guild to reduce the stress, but before we do that I wanted to give everybody one last shot to keep Mors Celeris alive. The decree read as follows (excerpt):

We must recruit the classes as outlined below into the guild by the last day of the month of June or Mors Celeris will explore other options including, but not limited to, merging into another Guild on the Emerald Dream realm.

One (1) tank (Druid , Paladin or Warrior)
Three (3) healers (At least one Priest and one Paladin)
Two (2) DPS (At least one Hunter)

These individuals must be active players and be willing and able to participate with us in our raids. They must be mature individuals. They must be level 70 and have gear that will allow them to enter Karazhan immediately.

We have reached a critical point in the history of Mors Celeris. We must grow now or die. If we do not bring additional members into our clan we will be putting too much strain on the current active members and too many opportunities will be lost to us. We cannot continue down the current path. I am calling for change.

We'll see how we do...

Addition: Immediately after posting this I logged in to discover that our shadow priest left the guild sometime in the middle of the night without saying a word. It never ends.

Anybody need a well-geared, mature and motivated Paladin tank?

Don't Summon Me, I'm Already There

2008-05-22T12:05:00.006-07:00

If I am attending a raid, and you are looking for me, I am standing right there at the meeting stone at the scheduled start time.

I am not in Shattrath hanging out with the beautiful people outside the Scryer bank. I am not on the Isle of Quel'Danas planting flags in the chests of demons. I am not in heroic Shadow Labyrinth with a pick-up group wiping on Murmur. I am not in Lakeshire roleplaying with the locals in the inn. I am not at the Auction House selling over-priced ore or shopping for epic blacksmithing plans that I will never use. And I am certainly not on /raid pleading for a summon.

C'mon people...

And the Main Tank Is...

2008-05-19T09:53:00.006-07:00

I had the opportunity run through Gruul's Lair again yesterday afternoon with Emerald Raiders and was pleased to see that instead of the warrior that we usually have to main tank (with me as off-tank) we had three Paladin tanks. I had assumed that I would be moved to main tank (yes, I know assumptions only lead to disappointment) but was completely shocked when the third pally was given main tanking abilities.

I am not a drama queen, and I so I took my responsibility and performed it flawlessly, but I couldn't help but wonder why this other Paladin was given tanking duties ahead of me. He had nearly 2k less HP than myself, less armor, less avoidance and less experience. In fact he has been a no-show to two raids that he had signed up for, something I would never do. There was nothing, absolutely nothing, that I could see that would justify allowing this other tank to take the reins and run wild.

Perhaps they wanted him to gain some experience, but that was never communicated to us. Remember, ER is a collaboration across guilds and this tank was not in the raid leader's guild and they have no relationship in the game as far as I know. I was baffled. The healers were strained, he would make silly mistakes and we wiped a few times. In the end we downed both Maulgar and Gruul - so does the end justify the means?

I didn't say anything and I won't. But I wanted to. I work hard, very hard, to get my gear to a very high standard and to be passed over for somebody that I feel did not meet that standard left me frustrated.

Does my work go unnoticed?

Everything Counts in Small Amounts

2008-05-16T08:11:00.008-07:00

I love Formula 1 racing. I've watched it since I was a kid with my dad and I have been an avid fan and follower ever since. I admire the strive for absolute perfection and precision in everything that these teams do - the cars, the garage, the paddock, the mechanics, the branding and image are all refined and regimented. There are no tools laying on the floor of the garage, the cars are polished on each return from the track and the team's hospitality suites are a mix of opulent 5-star hotel and high-tech military command center. They understand that at this level of motorsport it is a fight for that extra hundredth and thousandth of a second.

To progress, these racing teams focus on the small things - things that taken by themselves seem very insignificant but when looked at from a holistic approach yield unbelievable performance. Using a wheel locking mechanism that is three grams lighter than another option seems small and hardly worth the effort - but when it is all said and done it is these small details that separate those at the sharp end of the grid and those running out of the points.

We can apply this approach and way of thinking to World of Warcraft. This really is a game of small and incremental changes that when taken as a whole make make a significant impact to the environment in which we play. As we strive for better and better gear and progress into more difficult and challenging encounters our gear upgrades become smaller and smaller in scope but larger and larger in impact. We are looking to shave that two grams of the wheel locking mechanism if you will.

Using this philosophy, I dropped some gold last night to get two Solid Empyrean Sapphires cut to replace a Solid Star of Elune in my Inscribed Legplates of the Aldor and one in my Chestguard of the Stoic Guardian. I gained a total of six stamina for a pretty good chunk of change. I know I am going to have these two pieces for some time and so I felt it was a justified and wise investment.

Others may disagree with me but I am striving to be the McLaren-Mercedes of tanking and not the Toro Rosso.

Mergers & Aquisitions

2008-05-15T07:36:00.002-07:00

A couple of weeks ago I was approached by an officer of the guild YATTA with a proposition of our two guilds merging to further both guild's progress. We have declined several invitations for merger in the past for various reasons, but things are a little different now and I was intrigued by the suggestion and thought it had some potential, especially since some of our members had run some instances with YATTA members and they seemed to be people we could get along with.

A quick chat with some of our officers to gauge their initial reaction was positive, which was a surprise. We are a guild that has been around for a very long time and many of us our friends in RL - giving up our identity will not be easy but people are willing to do it if it means making things better for everybody involved.

It isn't really a merger I suppose but more of an acquisition on their part. Both guilds are not coming together to form a brand new guild with a new name - Mors Celeris would be absorbed into YATTA with myself becoming some sort of co-GM and raid leader and many of our officers holding leadership positions in our new home. The goal of the new combined guild would be to get back in Zul'Aman as quickly as possible as well as Gruul's Lair and Magtheridon's Lair with the medium-term goal of SSC and TK. I think we can do it if all goes well.

We ran a split Karazhan group last night with five of our officers and five of theirs. The point of this was not to see how epic they were or how bad-ass of players they were (they are good players btw). We wanted to be on vent with them and get a sense for their level of maturity and how well we would be getting along if we move forward. The combined run was a huge success as both sides were very pleased with the other. I can honestly say that I'm excited about this possible merger.

We are running together on Sunday again and then we'll see where we go from there...

A Paladin and his New Mace

2008-05-14T09:25:00.004-07:00

I am really after the new tanking trinket, the Commendation of Kael'thas that drops in heroic Magister's Terrace and so I jumped on this morning and decided to do a little PUG to see if it would drop for me. Luckily it was the daily and getting a group wasn't too difficult - I ended up with a priest, rogue and two mages and we burned through the place pretty quickly.

We did hit a little snag on Vexallus. We had the giant elemental to 5% of his life when everybody around me dies and I am the only person left standing in the group. Knocking off 5% more life on this boss is a lot to expect from a protection Paladin with no healer around. Lay on Hands, Avenging Wrath, mana potion, judgements, Hammer of Wrath and Divine Shield were enough to win the day. The party was pretty impressed and it made me proud to be a pally tank.

The trinket never did drop but I was lucky to get the Cudgel of Consecration from Kael'thas. This is a small upgrade over the Gladiator's Gavel I have been using for a very long time. What I really love is the appearance of the new mace - it is gorgeous and is a perfect aesthetic for a Paladin in my opinion. Much better than that Flinestonian rock on a stick.

Now if that trinket would only drop...

One Thing I Want

2008-05-10T11:09:00.003-07:00

Know what I want? I want the option to log into the game without everybody in my guild and on my friends list automatically being notified that I have suddenly entered the world and that I am now open for business. I want an invisible mode that allows me to hang out in Ironforge or to get some dailies done without the burden of chatting with everybody that wants to say hi, wants something from me or needs some advice. Almost every single instant messenger out there gives you this option because they get that there are times when people just don't want to be bothered.

Is this too much to ask?

Out to Pasture?

2008-05-09T12:12:00.006-07:00

A ton of new information about the upcoming Wrath of the Lich King expansion has been released today and it all looks fantastic. I am so excited to get away from the happy candy aesthetics of Outland and back to a dark, gothic fantasy world.

But what about this new Death Knight class, and what will it mean to the existing tanking community? Every account will be limited to a single DK on any server, so that will help limit the number of these running around, but I still have the feeling that there will be a lot of them. According to the new notes the Death Knight can serve either as a tank or as a melee-based damage-dealing class with a specialty for tanking magic-based bosses in raids.

I'm interested and anxious to see what this new tanking class will mean to existing tanks. Will pally and druid tanks be in the unemployment lines as everybody will want a new shiny Death Knight tanking their 5-man or 10-man? I'm sure Blizzard has some tricks up their sleeves to make the existing tanks sexy enough to keep their feet firmly planted in front of the big bad bosses.

Lets hope so anyway.

Dire Straits

2008-05-07T10:15:00.004-07:00

I have been running our guild on a shoestring budget - we have a total of two level 70 tanks and a total of two level 70 healers in the guild which means that if any of those four cannot attend a raid then it is canceled. We have clawed and scratched our way through Karazhan and were doing the same in Zul'Aman. Today I discover that the other tank is leaving the guild for what he thinks are greener pastures. This is a huge setback for Mors Celeris and it may be insurmountable.

It may be insurmountable not because we couldn't perhaps recruit another tank into the guild but because I may not want to expend that much energy again. I could have left the guild months and months ago for a large raiding guild (I have been recruited by many) but I declined those invitations because I wanted to build something. I wanted to get Mors Celeris into 25-man raids someday through our hard work and dedication. It is far easier to jump ship for selfish reasons than to stay and build up what you currently have. I have chosen to stay.

But how long do I stay? How long do I ignore my own ambitions for the good of my friends in the guild? We went from regular ZA runs to barely being able to field a single five person group to run Magister's Terrace in a single day. That breaks my heart.

Can we rebuild? Should we?

Nature Resist Tanking Gear

2008-05-06T07:58:00.013-07:00

With SSC on the horizon I knew I had some upcoming work to craft either a frost or a nature resist tanking set for the Hydross fight. I had a quick chat with the other tank I normally raid with and we decided that I wold focus on nature resist while he would put together the frost resist gear.

The key to putting together a resist set for tanking is to get to 365 resist, remain over 490 defense (uncritable) and then get your stamina as high as possible.

I can craft the following items (Exalted with Cenarion Expedition):
Wildguard Breastplate
Wildguard Helm
Wildguard Leggings

The following are the remaining items/enchants that I plan to be using:
Pendant of Withering
Gaea's Embrace
Glyph of Nature Warding
Nature Armor Kit
Enchant Cloak - Greater Nature Resistance
Crest of Sha'tar with 2x Void Sphere

It is time for me to get to work. These mats are not cheap and farming as a protection spec Paladin is not the exactly the fastest way to gather materials. I bang on an elemental with my hammer and by the time I get it killed I have watched a mage or a hunter kill five elementals. I get a little embarrassed.

Here are the mats I need for the big ticket stuff:
3x Primal Nether
42x Primal Life
42x Primal Shadow
78x Fel Iron Bar
52x Eternium Bar

Wish me luck.

A Happy New Interface

2008-05-03T18:00:00.012-07:00

I have not been happy with my user interface for some time now. Things were cluttered and important data was outside of my view most of the time. I decided to dig in and make some drastic changes to the UI to better fit my needs as a tank. I made myself these two simple rules: the UI must present the most important information front and center and the UI must be clean and aesthetically pleasing.

I have moved the player, target and target's target unit frames from the top left corner (which was in my periphery too often) to the lower center. This will allow me to quickly see who my target is targeting as well as to monitor my own well being more effectively. I have also made several spell/action buttons much larger for easier and more rapid access. These are things that are important but not really needed on a hot key since they are not used all the time. I am still tweaking which buttons go where in the UI but this is a work in progress and changes will be made as I use the new UI in actual play.

I am very pleased with how this has turned out aesthetically. It is simple and clean and gives plenty of space for the actual game rather than an overwhelming interface. I'm not really happy with the Paladin buff bar on the right edge of the screen but I'm not sure where to put it yet.

For those interested, here is a list of the add-ons I currently use:

AG_unitframes
Bartender3
BigWigs
Cartographer
ClassTimer
ClearFont2
eePanels
ElkBuffBars
Loggerhead
MiniButtonBag
Omen
Outfitter
PallyPower
Prat
RatingBuster
SimpleMiniMap
TankPoints
Titan

A Sudden and Unexpected Death

2008-05-01T08:32:00.006-07:00

We had a fun guild run into Zul'Aman last night and downed Nalorakk and Akil'Zon without much difficulty at all. We gave the timed event on Nalorakk our first real attempt and came up only about 90 seconds short. I was pleased with that and think we can get it next time, especially with the return of some our higher DPS members.

We decided to give Halazzi a go (we have never downed him). We did well on the first couple of attempts and made some progress, but our third attempt was a disaster. I was alive for a total of about 11 seconds. Not cool.

What happened? Well, when your main healer seems to be taking a nap for some reason bad, bad things happen to the tank.

He laid a Renew on me as I charged into battle and in the ensuing 11 seconds of my life he was only able to land a 3 second cast Heal. Heal? Where are my Greater Heals friend? Against Hallazi you better be proactive in your healing and you better be chain casting those Greater Heals or you are going to take a Saber Lash for 17,338 before you know what hit you.

As a tank I have a great relationship with my healers - but sometimes I just have to ask what the hell were you thinking?

Making Some Progess

2008-04-29T17:50:00.004-07:00

Stagnation kills. It puts you in a stupor and then kicks you when you aren't looking.

Recently I have been feeling that stagnation as the main tank for Mors Celeris. We cleared Karazhan and then everybody kind of looked at each other, shrugged and asked "now what?". Yeah sure, we've started Zul'Aman and downed the first two bosses - but I had my eyes on more and knew that Mors Celeris would never move beyond ZA.

I am happy to be raiding with Emerald Raiders and can report some very nice progress. We have downed Gruul twice now and the last time we marched in there and one-shot the whole place in less than an hour. We're doing Doom Lord Kazzak on Friday and raids to Magtheridon and Serpentshrine Cavern are starting very, very soon.

I'm excited to feel like I am progressing again and making a contribution to our success.

Upgrading my Boots and Ring

2008-04-28T08:53:00.012-07:00

I have a couple slots in my tanking gear that really feels like I have been using forever. It is really time to start looking at them closely and get them upgraded if possible. The two items are the Boots of the Protector (feet) and Band of Impenetrable Defenses (finger).

I crafted the boots for myself ages ago, they were one of my very first epic-level item. They are fantastic for a Paladin tank, but are there upgrades I should be looking at? We'll see. The ring is a world drop that I bought from somebody for probably way too much gold a long time ago. I have been using it forever and so it seems that the money was well spent but it is time to move on and find a new piece of jewlery.

Boots
The following are upgrades to the boots I currently wear:
Tide-stomper's Greaves - High Warlord Naj'entus, Black Temple
Lightbringer Stompers - Felmyst, Sunwell Plateau
Sabatons of the Righteous Defender - 60 Badge of Justice

Well, needless to say that with my current level of progression I will not be seeing the Greaves or the Stompers in the foreseeable future, and so my option here is the badge reward.

Comparing the two items, the Sabatons are not a huge upgrade in my opinion. Armor is a wash but I will pick up some stamina with the sockets on the Sabatons. I get a nice trade 8 defense rating for 8 dodge rating assuming I gem the Sabatons with a Solid Star of Elune and a Subtle Living Ruby. The loss of the block rating on the boots does not hurt me as I am well over uncrushable. The nice thing here is the gain of 13 stamina and a little more block value.

Ring
The following are currently upgrades for my ring:
Ring of the Stalwart Protector - 60 Badges of Justice
Band of the Eternal Defender - Exalted, The Scale of the Sands
Ring of Sundered Souls - Tidewalker, Serpentshrine Cavern
Band of the Abyssal Lord - Supremus - Black Temple
Signet of the Last Defender - Timed Chests, Zul'Aman
Violet Signet of the Great Protector - Exalted, The Violet Eye
Seventh Ring of the Tirisfalen - Tempest Keep Trash
Shermanar Great Ring - Shade of Aran, Karazhan

I already wear the Violet Signet on my other finger so that is out. Some of the other rings are within reach (The Shade of Aran has never dropped the Shermanar Great Ring for me) as I will be heading to SSC and possibly Tempest Keep soon. Many however consider the badge ring to be the best tanking ring in the game currently.

The new badge ring is a dramatic upgrade for me. I gain both stamina and armor which is a huge win. I also trade 26 defense rating for 28 dodge rating. Again, a trade I will happily make. There is no doubt about this ring.

So, comparing these items I feel like my biggest gain will be had by picking up the new ring first before upgrading my old boots. The cost of 60 badges isn't bad and I should have this new ring in the very near future.

Why the Hurry?

2008-04-27T07:58:00.003-07:00

A tank has considerable control over the pace at which an instance gets completed. It is the tanks job to keep the group moving at a reasonable pace, maintain the flow and be as efficient as possible. However, this does not mean that a tank is to be inconsiderate or rushing the group unnecessarily. I have seen too many tanks literally sprint from pull to pull while a mage or priest is still sitting at the corpses of the previous pull trying to drink - and then the tank in question has the audacity to complain about the slow polymorph or not receiving any heals. A tank should find a pace that the entire group is comfortable with and then maintain that throughout the run.

Now, on the other hand nothing (okay, almost nothing) bothers me as a tank more than when somebody in my group is in such a rush they are constantly spamming group chat to 'Pull Pull' or 'Go Go'. I will pull when I feel the group is ready to pull and not a moment before. When somebody like this is so rushed for time it inevitably leads to mistakes and wipes, not to mention that it just sucks the fun right out of the game for me.

Be efficient and enjoy the game. It isn't a race.

Guild Squabble

2008-04-25T09:05:00.013-07:00

We had some serious Guild Drama yesterday - it all started when I sent out a real-life email to our core group of players asking why none of them are signing up for the Gruul's Lair raids. A firestorm followed.

Backstory: Mors Celeris wants to get into some of the end-game 25-man raids but we do not have the membership numbers to make this a reality and so, out of necessity, I formed an alliance with Vox Draconis. Vox is a guild similar in size and progression to our own that shares many of the same goals. We decided to start scheduling Gruul's Lair runs together with the plan to eventually get to SSC and TK together. Our first collaborative effort was a success with the downing of Maulgar and we have been making good progress on Gruul the Dragonkiller himself. But suddenly the core group of players in Mors Celeris stopped signing up for the raids, halting all progress and forcing me to cancel several scheduled raids.

So, back to the drama. It seems that people hate Gruul's Lair. Hate it. The overall attitude was described as:

Gruul's is a huge bore. To a great extent it seems the nature of the game at this point that it is designed as a chore to get gear so that you can move on to another chore to get even better gear. There are a lot of things we have yet to do in my opionion as well. Getting gear used to be a nice bonus to running through a cool instance haphazardly like Scarlet Monastery, etc. I just don't like how the design after 70 has become that it's a means to an end to some extent.

Yet this is usually followed with "I want to see new content." There is some disconnect. They didn't get that in order to get to this "new content" they so desire (SSC, TK) you have to prepare and part of that preparation is Gruul. And so my final e-mail to them was:

We are not in Gruul's because people in Vox or in Mors simply want gear for gears sake. Gruul's Lair is a gate-keeper of sort to a world of new content. It is designed as a test for our DPS, healing and tank gear. It is a test of our raid coordination and our skill at handling complex fights. That is why Gruul's Lair is so short (a cave). If you cannot down Gruul don't even bother stepping into the next tier of 25-man raids.

I think they got it and have committed to at least giving Gruul and this alliance with Vox Draconis a fair shot.

The real issue underlying our guild currently is the division between those that want to progress into higher level raid content and those that want to focus on socializing and enjoying the game through more casual content like group quests, instances and world PvP. We'll see how it plays out.