2012 In Review!

I'd like to take a few minutes to send out a friend (2012) that was kind of ho hum both in game and out for me. Basically, this year went out about the same as it came in, just...blahhhhh.

This year actually brought the 1st time I suspended my account. For a few months prior to MoP 5.x being brought into play, I was done. The game had just lost it for me. It was short lived.

So without further adieu, lets get into my thoughts;

The Good!

• The art work in MoP - No complete zone is amazing but overall the art that was done is pretty great. I really enjoy the views. From the gear to the buildings, Blizz really hit a home run with the detail and the way the captured the Chinese themes. I love the way the "Wall" winds thru the zones. 
• The talent system - At max level this is fantastic! Oh my, its simple and you don't have the odd D-Bag telling you, "psssst...your spec is all wrong". As you level it is long days between getting new points but I think it is more than made up for at 90.
• Tradeable loot - This was brilliant and I loved it. Running with guild members this was cool if you were unsure about a piece or if you did the ultimate OH- OH and picked the wrong piece from the vendor.
• Account wide mounts and achievements  Finally they made your account look like an account, instead of a puzzle that was half-assed together. I highly approve of this one. 
• Transmongering - ugly word, kinda cool. You can make gear that you REALLY want worthwhile. I'm so glad I held on to my T6 gear. 

My winner for the best new thing in game for 2012 - Upgradable loot! I don't know how many times I wanted a piece of gear for MONTHS and finally I'd get it. Then next week a patch comes our or a nerf and something else becomes more "BETTER" for you. This way you can at least put some points in to a hard fought, well needed item. (more here)

The OK! (sure I'm not sticking to the normal patter but its my thoughts...LOL)

• Farming - Overall I like this aspect of the game. It actually gives you something to do that you can work with and help yourself with in-game  Be it either cooking or mats you might need. The really cool thing is you can grow motes which is a life saver. The really bad is the shit you have to do to pick and plant your crops. There is no way it should take over 15 to 20 minutes to plant 16 crops. I'd love it if they would nerf the surprises you get when planting or picking.
• Scenarios- Thank you, Blizzard! I really enjoy these fast, easy way to do something different in game. No tank needed, almost zero gross people in these things and it moves to fast to the lazy to take hold. It would be perfect aside from the fact the gear/loots is useless and you get no JP from the bosses.
• Shrine of Two Moons- Overall I like having a major hub in a new land. There is more bad than good but you do get everything you need there, I still don't understand why Blizz didn't put Ally and Horde in the same city? 
• Motes of Harmony - Overall, I understand it and like it. I wish they were BOA instead of BOE. 

There is no, most OK because - well that would be like the best mediocre thing. It just don't work.

The Bad - 

• Cataclysm's finish - ok, make that the whole expansion. It was garbage. The 1st tier of raiding was ok, but after that it was all down hill. I spent more time in the 5 mans that anyone should.  There was so very little to embrace about that expansion, I"m just glad it is gone.
• VP going down after every 5 man or scenario - In cata we were allowed in a subsequent patch from release to be allowed to run for max VP for a max of 7. Not everyone can play all day and this allowed you to get the VP in case you missed it. Now with the way things are done, there is very little incentive to run more than one. 
• Heroic MoP 5 mans- They are pitiful. No challenge at all with what I mentioned above the amount of people running them is low. With the new news that there will be none release it 5.2 I can see them dying out. I'd rather spend my time doing a round of dailies than doing into a heroic. I'd like to get your feed back on this, please leave a comment.
• Faction grinding for VP gear. Absolutely STUPID! The worst part is you have to open one to revered before others become available. I could continue on this but I think they looked to stop a gushing wound with a band aid by doing this.
• Tanking gear has gone DPS! Really guys? do we need even more fights about who rolls on what. I can't believe haste is the stat for prot pally's. Hit and Exp mean so much even for mitigation. They absolutely missed the mark on this one. 
• Professions are not longer money makers. I've got a JC and Enchanter, I make nothing with these two. JC is dead other than mounts. Enchanting is so heavily flooded with mats and competition it makes it hard. My LW makes decent money but as more have unlocked the recipe's the gold has dried up. 

The worst of the worst in 2012! 

The daily grind! Have the implemented anything worse than this in game ever? I know, if you don't like them don't do them. But really, it is the #1 way to earn extra loot (which has been a fail mechanism) via the coins. It is the only way to open certain professions recipes, if you are a raider, the gear was a must. It really has turned off many from the expansion so far. From the ass hats that stand on the quest givers to make your life just a little more miserable, to the mobs that seem to never not spawn and gang up on you. Blizzard has answered this many, many times, they did this to get us out of the cities and keep us busy. It just reeks of wrong, it just frustrates people and wastes time. Blizz just missed the boat. We went thru this in TBC and well, I guess they didn't learn anything from that.

Well. where do we go from here? I'm not sure. I can tell you this, my object of my blog is a view of a WOW tank. I'm not tanking any longer. I'm only Ret. I'm not even collecting prot gear anymore. It isn't worth it. I've never played ret, MoP has forced me to, for my own sanity and for my need to still play the game.

Here is to a great and safe 2013. Thank you all for reading my blog, I enjoy you all. Lets hope 2013 is even better than the year that was 2012.

Be safe!

Tier 15, Already?

5.2 on the PTR soon.

So this expansion seems to be rolling right along. We have tons of info already on (MMO) about the patch notes and the view of the new Tier armor. I'm not a really big fan of the T15 pally set. It lacks, um...well it lacks, I'll leave it at that, although the yellow looks better than the other two colors.
 To be fair, I'm never a really big fan when I see a picture of them, but live and around town they look much better. Season 13 armor set is viewable too but that is horrid and I won't waste your time linking that.

I'll hit on the highlights for the upcoming info so far:

• We get another faction and quest area. 
• New raid with 12 normal bosses and a heroic only.
• World bosses will spawn faster and we have a new one incoming.
• Warlocks now FINALLY (um, we will see about this) get green flames! Really, its only been around for 4 years but now you can have it too.
• New player models.
• PVP JC only gems.
• Farm changes-  
• Buy the farm - You are able to purchase your farm from Yoon which makes your farm an inn essentially and you will also receive orders to gain rep with the faction that places that order.
• You can purchase a seed bag that allows you to plant 4 at a time. 
• Special crops yield has been increased.
• When you master plow virmen will pop up stunned and at 30% health.
• Wild crops will be LESS!

Paladin changes- (sources)

 Paladin  -

• Hand of Purity now reduces all incoming damage by 10% in addition to its other effects.
• Eternal Flame periodic heal now provides 100% more healing when self-cast.
• Judgment now costs 5% of base mana.
• Protection
  • The base damage of Consecration has been increased by 789%, and it now scales less efficiently with attack power by approximately 11%.

Shout Out: The Undermine Guy!

I ran across a wonderful interview (Here) on the WOW Insider by a man named Erorus who runs probably my favorite website in WOW right now. The Undermine Journal gives you solid facts on what is selling, when its selling and even to an extent who your main competition is. It goes over Add-ons which are great but if the days lot have expired people seem to guess on the price of an item so this site tells you what the real market rate will bear on the price of an item. Not only on your realm but all realms similar to yours. You must check this out if you in any way like the gold making part of the game. I'm guessing most people know of this site.

But... introducing a site that ALLOWS you to see what realms are similar to yours.

I'm going to say many don't know about his other VERY popular, very helpful site called realmpop. A ingenious site that counts populations in a way I never thought of before. A quote take from the site states how they come up with the numbers:

How - To get the list of characters for a realm, first we record all the characters who posted to the auction house. Then we fetch and record their guild rosters. This should cover the majority of characters on a realm. To avoid getting listed, a character must never post to the auction house, and never belong to a guild where a guild member posts to the auction house.

Using the auction house to get real numbers is something I never would have figured could be done to get totals, but if you go to the site and see how he goes about it is amazing.  Above is a view of the info you can view on top of that you can to sort via his data seeing who has the highest Horde population etc.


What is lacking in graphic beauty on these set of sights is made up for in totality by the sheer amount  of info provided.

Thank you Erorus for adding so much to the WOW community and thanks to WOW Insider for doing this interview.

Surviving the Daily Grind!

The long road to 90 felt almost painful! For the next few paragraphs I'm going to give you my ideals for making you time you log on when you aren't raiding or doing guild activities. I think this is the number on complaint I see everyone have about MoP so far.

Leveling my 1st toon to 70 didn't feel as awful as the five levels that Blizzard gave us as a jump off point for this Xpac. The rise to 70 was new, exciting and adventurous. I looked at my time on game as a book series I read when I was a kid called Choose Your Own Adventure. It offered the read the way to pick how you wanted the book to end. Some of my favorites. This launched me into D&D and a game called Dark Tower that allowed the same kind of thing. Even after landing at 70 I always had fun. Sure that was 6 years ago but doing your daily PVP or Heroic was something I looked forward too. I had fun, it never felt like a job or work. Sadly, the start of this Xpac has felt just the opposite.

After hitting the max level in 90 I felt relief! It took me a few levels and a guide or two to realize that I couldn't do it as prot this time around, that was pretty shocking as I've leveled as prot all the way thru with Chasey. Even at 90 with better gear, doing dailies in prot gear is tiresome.

After being a 90 for a few months, and getting me second toon to 90 showed me some times and I'd like to share them with you. Maybe its a bit late or past when it should have been written but if I give even one person a reason to log back on because they don't feel like its a job and just want to have fun it will be worth it. Because -  we play for fun, well most of us do.

• YOU DO NOT NEED TO DO THEM EVERY DAY!
• Don't try to do it all at once. Pick a faction and do that one until you get what is needed.
• After you get the Golden Lotus to Revered take a break from them and go to the others just to break up the grindy feel of doing only one faction all the time.
• Enjoy the sights and try and not repeat the same set over and over. 
• Queue for scenarios - I really enjoy the diffident aspect of this game that we now have. It is an easy 40 VP and give you some quick gold. 
• Jump on a low level alt to reminisce about the game you knew in the past. Do a 5 man too!
• This sounds to easy but don't log on for a day or two when you don't have "anything really to do", it will refresh you.
• Remember the gold you are gaining, dailies are the new "I play the AH" part of the game.
• Do not feel compelled to do dailies, if you do, you will wear yourself out of even wanting to play. Getting the VP/gold is not crucial to your survival.

A few good things about dailies -

• You earn VP by not sitting in the city mounted listening to 2/City TRADETROLL spam his thoughts on his pre-adolescent view of the world.
• You accumulate charms to allow you extra rolls in the "loot sac of fail" or gear while doing LFR.
•  Well, that is all I can really come up with.

While doing research I found this from Orcish Army Knife on trick for doing dailies. 

I understand Blizz was trying to keep us busy and allow us a way to enjoy the graphics of the game they put lots of work into. The missed the mark big time! MoP is more grindy than anything else they've ever attempted. They did it for a good reason, so they think, and that is to keep us busy and not bored. What they really did is make MoP a full time job....If YOU let it.

For a Good Cause: Cinder Kitten!

My 1st purchase from Blizz's store.

I have never purchased a pet or a mount from Blizzard. I never felt the need to, even the charity pets. I felt this was a Blizzard money grab and way to get attention. Call me crazy it is just how I felt.

Well today I seen the reason to pull the trigger on a new charity pet the Cinder Kitten. One that I felt very strongly about because of how many lives its touched and where it hit.
100% of all proceedings will go to the Red Cross in there effort to aid victims of Hurricane and Super Storm Sandy.

The Poke-Man feature aside, I think this pet is pretty cool, absolutely adorable and well done by Blizzard.

Its $10 bucks and really worth it, if you can afford it please think about purchasing this pet. You can also gift it too.

Here is MMO-Champions video on the pet and the press release.

Now up for adoption in the Pet Store: the Cinder Kitten, a fiery little feline looking for a home to warm. Adopt this adorable rascal, and you’ll help bring relief to the victims of Superstorm Sandy in the process.
From now until December 31, 2012 at 11:59 p.m. PST, 100% of the $10 USD adoption fee will be donated to the American Red Cross's Superstorm Sandy relief efforts. This support will enable the Red Cross to provide shelter, food, emotional support, and other assistance to victims of this disaster.
The Cinder Kitten doesn’t just have good looks -- this kitty has claws, and makes a purrfect addition to any Pet Battle team. The Cinder Kitten has Rare-quality stats and is a part of the Elemental family. This not-so-cool cat uses many Beast abilities in addition to Dragonkin and Elemental, and can also Prowl, Leap, and Rend its way to a 3-hit combo against its foes—and look good doing it.
To learn more about the Pet Store, please visit the Pet Store FAQ.

(Sources)

How to be Elite!

Everyone thinks they can -

The separation between the elite player and a normal raider is staggering. So staggering that the normal raider will never ever have a clue on what the elite player does to get where they are at, the amount of pulls it takes to kill the boss or the investment of time they put into their toon to make it right for ONE fight let alone a whole nights raiding.

This topic came to me while reading a thread on a forum I go to from time to time. The forum has some good  people but in a way, a skewed sense of the game from a more casual audience  I take nothing away from what they have accomplished or what kind of people they are but it usually isn't a site you go to when you want to find out what is new in game. For that reason I will leave it anonymous.

In every aspect of life you come by people who just have a knack at being better at something they do. Call it natural ability, if you will. Usually that isn't by total mistake and this portion of the discussion goes way deeper than I'm willing to go here but skill is usually cultivated more than innate. If you want to learn more about that please check out this book and site. I've looked at both in length and they make a ton of great points. But back to this point; you are always in awe of those people -they are often called the 1% because 99% of the people walking around can't tie their shoes correctly but these people make anything look easy.
Our game of WOW is no different. 

How did this post come about?

There was a discussion about Prot Pally builds and the new way things are for post 5.0 tanking. The poster started to slam a person who has contributed so much to WOW, Pally's and tanking in general he is a legend. I'm talking about Theck. A member of WOW's community so highly thought of, Blizz even named a poorly stated tanking ring after him. I say that with a smile on my face because maybe it was a sign of things to come. The statement went to the "Theck doesn't know what the hell he is talking about" due to the use of haste as a stat that Prot Pally's want to use. The thread went on to say that they knew the he was wrong because none of the top guilds in the worlds tanks were doing this. Which BTW is flat out wrong. (Dream Paragon's top prot pally Fraggoji). My counter rebuttal was, we causal's can't look to the very elite due to several reason and just do things that they do. It doesn't work that way.

But this got me thinking.

Now, in that post I put I'm not Theck fan boy, but looking back on it, I guess I am. I know for a fact I wouldn't be the player I am, or was with out the time he devoted to ALL of us knowing what it took for use to be built as tanks. Other than maybe Ciderhelm, I had no clue who to look up to as tanks. He laid the foundation to my career as a solid WOW tank.

The reason not everyone can do it.

Here is what I came up with - I always loved raiding from the minute I walked into Kara and got chased out due to a face pull. Raiding is or was the best thing about this game to me. As a raider I thought I knew what it meant to be a min/maxer and top of the line. I had some run in with greatness. In fact I hit top 300 for a few days in Wrath.

I also seen some drama that being towards the top created. I've logged on to see my guild was no longer going to be a guild. I was asked if I could switch professions to get an extra 400 HP's. I've been sat for certain fights because prot pally's weren't a solid choice on a given fight and been brought in as a 3rd tank because of my PoJ skill which made me move faster to kite adds. Oh, I was also ported out and hearthed in so I could go as an extra healer in certain fights. All in all sounds reasonable, it was what you did to be good.

Just like in real life there is a point in wow where your skill won't take you further. You hit a wall, and it could be from a multitude of things. Can you take the hours of raiding and wiping? Can you devote the time to running your rotation with your eyes closed? Can you take the yelling that goes on? Or losing out on that ONE piece of loot that you needed to complete your threat set because the loot master gave it to the new tank to help get him closer to the rest of them? On top of all that are you willing to do whatever it takes to be number 1? It isn't easy.

Visual proof -

Oh I thought it was! I watched this - The Race to Number One a professionally done movie about the top few guilds in the world racing to get the top spot. They do some crazy shit. I could never devote that kind of time or life to this. Its sad and awesome at the same time.



Race to World First from Looking for Group Productions on Vimeo.

People that get to where these people are in game are no different than any other 1% in the world. It isn't easy and takes a special kind of person. They log out in different gear so you don't know what their spec was for a fight. They walk to rope of just outside the rules every way they can just to get that kill.

And on top of that, they do it better than you or I could ever do it. See I thought I was good. I really did. After watching that movie it proved to me I'm not. I'm not bad. There was also that other incident I had that made me realize I might not be ready for prime time. This goes back to mid wrath.

In person proof - we've all seen it - 

It was just after LFD come out. T9 was still the top of the line gear due to gating. 258 Was heroic 25 man T9. I qued up with my hunter to get some VP/JP. I entered and the tank had zero gems or enchants but was fully 258. I always looked at the tank, just to see his build he was a prot paladin. I looked no further, because we were off to the races. A bit into the dungeon I seen the healer (tree) and the tank were in the same guild. From start to finish it took us 8 minutes. That entire place was done in 8 minutes. Now, most of you can remember that Wrath style AOE fest were pretty common, but not the week that LFD came out and not with such grace and perfection. This guy was off spec, not set up correctly and pulled that whole place in about 4 pulls. We didn't skip one boss. I looked later to see where they were from. It was a guild called Exodus on Ysondre at the time they were top 15 in the world in progression.

So yes while the guys who put spread sheets and blogs together to make us better, we normal casual players have no clue what it takes to be sitting up high on the pecking order of WOW raiders, let alone staying there. They just get it. Because Theck or EJ puts out a post on how to do it, doesn't mean you can do it like them. The thing that makes the really great theroycrafter so good, is  they do it and then write it.

I've said this before, anyone could run a 969 rotation, but to really understand why you did it and what came up next separated the great from the best.

Sorry for the length. I really wanted to get this out. We all think we can do IT but really not many of us can, it is why one guild has for patch after patch, time after time been at the top. It ain't easy, and if anyone could do it, why hasn't anyone else done it?

Watch the video Race to Number One if you get time. It will open your eyes.

November Ramblings

I know I neglect my blog. So I thank those that pop in to read my ramblings the odd two or three times a month I jump on to whine about the game.

Due to the fact I'm not raiding with any guild and LFR is my source of seeing raids, which is equal to taking a few friends and doing a raid boss from two expansions back it doesn't really take much of my time, there is a mechanic you might have to look out for but hey, the healers can heal you thru it so don't worry about it.
On top of not raiding, having family in and out due to holidays and the the doldrums of the daily's grind I'm not really enthusiastic about the game right now. I stay for the time sink it offers when I want to visit my toons. I do have a fondness for my toons. I've known them for years.

So what did this month offer for me in game:

Shade of the Horseman is no joke when you are in lvl 88+ Blue. The fight was ridiculous when the DPS is to slow to burn adds. I'm not saying its hard but the ONE time I did do it, I must have had 16 adds on me with health equal to what I had as a tank. I can remember the last time this fight popped up in TBC prior to Wrath launch and it took 2 minutes for this fight. This time around it was about three minutes per phase.

Blizz still made it tremendously hard for you to do any quests that require you to get a hold of other factions players toons. So now instead of hanging out in our home cities, watching the kids spam trade with Thunder-fury links, we now get put in an unmountable city where we have just about everything we want but an AH and the other faction. Oh and a way to get from point to point fast and well, a city that is fun to be in. I still don't think I have seen everything that this city we get stuck at, has to offer.

I will say, even thou LFR is scaled down and basically brainless we still get to see the brilliance of the fights and design Blizz put into the fights. Elegon is a wonderfully looking fight and simply a two phase fight that LFR tanks seem to not get. Garlon is pretty neat as well, kill some legs, slow the boss, kite and kill. Lots to do but simple. I also like the Spirit Kings. From what I see, the raids were done very well, much more so that the last few tiers of Cata.

I know 5.1 is here, I still haven't started the quest line that opens the new quests with rep, I mean lord knows that we have enough factions to grind thru, so wondering how the hell the basis of a new patch would be to add another grind is beyond me.

Lets not forget we now have brawlers guild, this is something that is like PVP but not. On top of it, you need to get an invite, the 1st round of invites go to those willing to sink gold into by going to the Black Market AH spend gold on this. Another idea that you have to wonder what the braintrust at the front office greenlighted this odd game mechanism.


My parting shot for this wonderful month as we lead to the kick off of Christmas. I flew to Halfhill Village to do my framing. I have the complete farm open to me, all 16 plots. I understand that you must not make this pure mindless, but from the time I picked my 1st plant until I finished it took me 13 minutes. This wasn't doing dailies, it was picking my plants, taking the "Why not Scallions" quest, grabbing my seeds and replanting. Almost a minute per plant. Why? I had 5 Critters to fight, 5 of my plants were tangled, and the others were either parched or infested. Not ONE plant was just pick and plant.  I did get 16 motes of harmony but it cost me so much time I wanted to scream.

Til next time, thanks for hanging in there with me.

I hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday.

Jewelcarfting, its a bad joke!

Looking back

Chasey's professions are Jewel Crafting and Enchanting. She has always been an enchanter but the other profession has changed a few times. I don't remember the 1st couple, but one day before Naxx. 2.0 I went mining to get the Stam. that goes along with that profession. Shortly after I realized, I must go JC, I was spending SO much gold on gems. At the time I did it, I was looking to save gold and get the unbelievable JC only gem bonuses. My goal wasn't to be a gold maker or to collect all of the recipes that the game offered. I was to make my gems or gems for my alt's. and to get the profession only stats.

Towards the end of Wrath I got to get the real benefit of being a Jewel Crafter. The awesome gold oppertunity and doing what the money makers call the "Saronite Shuffle" by prospecting Saronite. It worked but I was never a true auction house mogul. It was to keep my butt out of debt. Doing the JC daily wasn't much fun but it wasn't painful. The money you made became much better than any of the drawbacks.

During Cata, the money from JC was sickening! I made painful amounts of gold selling gems. Until the epics came out. At that time, being a JC was a pain in the ass! The dailies weren't horrible but it was something you had to do to get the patterns you wanted and the sheer fact your bonus was almost void by being a JC hurt to the core. I wasn't raiding but it saddened me I could spend 250g to get the same stats I had already by being the owner of a crafting profession. I heard some talk of it, but in the end Blizz never did up the JC only gem stats.

Enter the Mist of Panderia

For almost the entirety of Cata, blue quality red gem cuts sold for above 100g. They hardly ever dipped below that until the release of epics and even then certain cuts stayed pretty close. Every 4 days you had a new pattern that you NEEDED and could make a profit.

MoP has brought us a guessing game and the NEED for a miner on staff to get the gems you need. As we sit less than two months from release day, the blue quality red cuts are 60g on my server. That is even for the brilliant cut, which is much needed by ALMOST every class.

I'm a tank, I need 3 or 4 cuts. I'm not looking to sell at this point, I'm looking to get the cuts I need for my gear. It took me close to a week of buy or xmuting to get my cuts, per gem. Now I did get extra gem cuts but NO ONE buys blues. It is almost at this point (yes, even now in game) better to vendor them. Because re-listing them for 5 days straight makes no Goblin sense.

I thank Blizz for giving JC's a mount. Its been glorious doing dailies to get the pattern. While I discuss this I can see almost non stop for another poor JC, and I say poor because there seems to be a million of us, are now selling the panthers for cost. Yes, there is zero money to be made in the mounts.

No this isn't all about gold with me, my complaint isn't that the poor JC can't make gold, the simple fact is I've had to rely on RNG to get my patterns. I still don't have the pure mastery cut and the ring and neck patterns were obsolete a few days after level 90 for any toon.

Just quickly on another note, I think Blizz really dropped the ball on professions for this whole xpac. Sure I think they cut down the BOT'rs by making raw mats so very plentiful. But being a LW, Tailor or Blacksmith requires you to level and GRIND rep! OH, yes more grinding with the alts. Enchanting doesn't even have a use for the sought after Spirit of Harmony.

On the Spirit of Harmony front, I'm not sure if Blizz has implemented a worse idea to "get people out in the world". Making them BOE makes some of the raw materials less attractive. To my statement on enchanters, and even JC's who get their patterns they want they are now sitting on these and selling the raw mats you can buy from the panda. If you look it really has put dent in the Golden Lotus market.

Looking ahead

I'm guessing as teir gear becomes more regular on the normal raiders, as opposed to the hard core. That will once again make the gem market profitable again, but...

Sure being a JC is still fun at this point. The money from the profession is dried up. We are now only able to have TWO JC only gems in our gear and even cutting the Meta's is less cost efficient than selling the blue quality gems. I'm hoping that Blizz makes a change to the profession in later patches. Again, not raiding I'm not really disabled by this other than not having incoming gold flow that came with being a JC once was. Blizz has fixed that for us by giving us 120 or so factions that take no less than 9000 dailies to do to become exalted with.

Currently, being a JC is a joke. If I was raiding hard core again or on a serious scales I'd be upset by the 'nerfs' to the profession only benefit.

Just another DK.

Inept!

I've never denied it, I'm a bad DK. I laugh at myself for just how bad I am. Being a solid DK has never been a priority. I mean for as good as I am at tanking, DK tanking came easy but as far as what a DK is really capable of I'm not that kind of player.

I've had some really newb moves with this toon.are laughable and legendary. I had hit level 80 with Khasey and never reforged her weapon, why you ask? I didn't know how to open the book that allowed me to pick. I had to ask while in Ebon Hold. It caused a bit of giggle in local but yep, that's me. That isn't even the worst one. I had asked my guild to get a good group together so I could run ZA/ZG with people I know. I didn't want to bring a group down, at least not with strangers. One the way to the bank after the run, a guildie asked me over vent, why I didn't have the DK only flyer. I was stunned! I was like, "dude, stop messing with me". He assured me, he was not messing with me and that they sold a DK flyer that was like a bone gryphon. I went to the trainer after having him give me directions and bought it. I was amazed.

See, I'm not the most pro DK out there. I've always marveled at good DK's that could use all their tools to perfection. I know there is some, not many but those guys are good! I've played with a few that made me marvel the class. I've also had a few people who stopped playing because of how OP the class is. Needless to say they are a tad polarizing.

I tell you all this because I'm leveling my DK as my second to 90. Believe me when I say this, the second time around it is going faster. The killing speed that she offers is AMAZING. Much better than a ret pally offers. I go with a pretty stock UI and don't really worry to much about all the tricks and tools but they are on the bar.

I"m leveling straight DPS this time around. I'm really kind of over tanking for strangers that have zero inhibition on what they feel they need to say to complete strangers. So I que as DPS and just do my job.

I have even read a blog on how to increase my DPS and what kind of stats I need to be a good DPS toon.

Me EPIC?

So today, I went in and did Shado-Pan Monastery in a PUG.It wasn't great, even at lvl 87 I was killing in DPS. I did about 26K DPS or about 6k more than the next high DPS. This might be a long run I was thinking. After clearing to the last boss and pulling him TWICE, I was even on that horrid fight still about 5k more DPS. We had a ranged DPS pulling 6800 DPS, yes at lvl 88 a Warlock hit 6800 on that fight. He dropped group and we got another lock. Mid fight our tank died, then dropped group. I was going to Rez him but he was gone.

I thought oh jeeze here we go again. I didn't want to give up. If you have ever read my blogs in the past you know I do NOT like to give up on a fight. It kills me to not try it completely before you die.

My instinct kicked in. I pushed blood presence, grabbed the boss and tried to maintane aggro as best as I could. The healer died! I'm like we'll this is it. I had enough Runic power to battle rez the healer, and we got pulled to the ORBS. I pop'd army right after that happened. I was taking a beating and had zero blood runes to hit Death Strike, so I sacked my ghoul and hit  Ice bound fortitude and helped with the Orbs as the boss fought. Boss was at about 1 million health. I figured we could do this..,. and we did!

(ok for those that see my DPS for this fight, remember I was running for my life for most of it, brez'n the healer and poping army while trying to avoid damage LOL)

Right after the fight, WOW, great job and AWESOME came up in party chat. Not for me, just for us, for 4 manning a boss that we all thought we were going to die on. Can you imagine a 5 man group acting together and to get a job done. Most of the time we take it for granted but every once in a while a run comes around like this that tells you even if you aren't good on this toon, you can still pull some amazing things off because you don't want to die.

Not bad for just another DK and I had FUN doing it.

The Torment of Halfhill Village!

If I was a witty writer I'd make a song about this wonderful little city. It would be grand and catchy. But I'm not so I won't.

(source)

We has Shatt, a mecca of wonder with refugee's and research facilities. It was multi- leveled and seemed so amazing at when you 1st got there. It seemed busy and friendly  It housed everything you needed aside from auction houses. You could fall to your death in a second if you clicked the wrong mount or happened to be on the toon that was on the non Scryers rep. Located so amazingly it never felt like a chore to get to and was the height of the game for me.

Then came Dalaran. The create it created was huge but getting there was pretty cool. When Wrath hit, it was a mystery to me on how I'd get there then...how do you get out. I jumped out of the sewers the 1st time and bubbled. As I landed I got tore apart by some wolfs that were close. That was fun times.

When Cataclysm released I thought, hey Blizz made a huge mistake by sticking us all in the home cities. We sat around for hours in Org or SW and read trade, did our few dailies and leveled alts. Something felt off about having no hub city.

About a month into MoP I"ve found myself never logging out at the newest and shiniest of the grand cities Blizz has put in game. While it is kinda cool, you can't ride around and well, just about everything is spread out in nooks and crannies. Its not even where I log off now.

So where do log out you ask? In a tiny lil village full of wonderful dragon and magical seeds. You can phase out in the blink of an eye and buy all the good you need to power level cooking in about 20 seconds and 60g or so (really I'm guessing at the price, I think it might have been more like 200g but whatever) and if you head up just a tad you can find an inn on stilts (the Lazy Turnip) with the coolest music in game (my opinion).


Every day I log on and do some farming. Oh, no not that kind of farming. I am not looking to make some armor or extra gold. I'm actually growing crops where my main, Chasey always seems to have to beat the hell out of some critter that messes with my plants. Once you get high enough level with the Tillers you no longer have to use their rusty ole can or hand pump sprayer, but you still have to deal with them stupid ass vermin that pop up. Yes, folks, I log on to a video game and farm! Why, cuz someone thought it would cool to take us out of the major cities and put us in the thimble of a village where every nit wit on the server ride their WAY to big mount and stand on the vendor or quest giver.

Growing 1.6 Spirit of Harmony a day is O.P. if you ask me. I farmed mobs, and did dalies for about 3 days to get my first 3 to do the JC research.

Really I don't mind the farming in game. It is kind of cool to grow what mats or food you need. The only real issue I have is Halfhill is so small its hard to get to what you need. The dailies out of that area are pretty fun and fast. Seems that all that work you put into cooking some panda wants to steal your newly cooked food for reputation. I do wonder why pre 90's don't get rep from the Tillers while planting.

Its really hard to talk to people in game with mounts sitting on top of the quest givers.
It never seems to amaze me that Blizz never pre-thinks these things thru. If you are on at a busy time on a busy server it could take 5 minutes to get the person you need to talk to. Doing the Golden Lotus dailies is pain stacking at times.

The other biggest pain in the butt right now is logging on to farm rep. Yes, I"ve heard that rep farming was done. But if you don't you won't get the rep you need to get patterns and well epics. The money is great. Logging on to do a job is NOT!

I wonder how the quaint people of this tiny village think of the growth potential of all the new guests?

My Impressions of the Mist!

Finally a 90!

Oh my what a grind. I've played this game since 2007 and I've seen some grinds to level and get rep. I don't think any of the past stuff I've done in game come close to how LONG the grind was from 88-90. It honestly felt that was seven levels worth of work. Even the quest rewards, XP and gold was amazing. It felt like the my XP bar never moved. Mostly I had rested XP too. I just can't image going to another toon now and starting that grid.

So what do I think of MoP. The scenery is beautiful. They really did a nice job on the art work. Not really liking the mobs but the buildings and landscape are really put together well. I haven't got all the instances done but what I have seen they did nice work on that too. I can't wait to see the rest.

Now on the difficulty level from what I've seen - The 5 mans are a joke. I'm in starter gear and the things I've seen and done are laughable. Cata set the bar much higher on entry level difficulty. Gear isn't horrible, the quest rewards seem to be pretty nice. Not the greens but anything blue and higher. At this point, by the time people hit epic level of gearing, we will be doing 5 mans as fast as we did towards the end of Wrath. It will be a pull fest. In fact there is ZERO fear by the dps on ninja pulling.

I'll say this, I do not run a damage meter as a tank or ever for that matter. Due to this I've almost figured out I have and internal clock that tells me how the DPS is going. I've been linked a few times and I fear tank damage output is TOO low at this moment.

Up until level 87 I quested as prot as I have done for 87 levels. Chasey was leveled as prot from level 1. At 88 it felt like I was back at level 32, I could honestly go to the rest room and come back with half a mobs health left to finish. Pulling 5 mobs as I have in the past really lead to trying to keep alive more than anything else. The mob really started to hit hard. As I got to 89 to 90 I had to actually quest as Ret. This saddened me but it made killing go just a tad quicker. Level 90 mobs had roughly 400K health. So I guess you could say the quest mobs are highly tuned and the 5 mans are well....easy sauce.

I do understand that there is a new feature to the game in called challenge mode but I don't know if running 5 mans (normal, heroic and challenge) mode add variety. It seems like there is just EXTRA lockouts. I dunno, I haven't done them yet, so my judgement is with out knowledge.

On being Prot!

I like tanking so far. Threat is a no brainier picking up mobs after a bone head ninja pulls while the healer has zero man isn't tough. It feels like we are missing another attack or a bit of a lull in the rotation. I love holy prism, my 7th tier talent. Not huge damage but enough and the heal is pretty nice, when running with DK's who think there is zero reason to move out of the goop, fire or black shadow stuff on the floor, it gives the healer a second to realize he is dealing with a retard...lol

Brewmaster!

So when I hit 89 I decided to do the brewmaster boss. Coren has SO many HP's and abilities that I never knew he did. My 1st time I did it, the healer was 90 and a rogue was 90, the others were 89 and we got it done. It went smoothly and fast. Not DPS fast but kind of like any other time you ran Coren just to get the dodge trinket.

My next time I wasn't so lucky. I had a druid healer who forgot he was a healer and went kitty and a Ret pally. ( I don't know if anyone has noticed, Ret pally's are pretty squishy) I died almost instantly, well as soon as Ardent Defender went off. He battle rezed me. I got all the mobs set up and I proceeded to get kegged 4 times straight. (Yes DPS was that slow that I was able to get kegged 4 times). All of a sudden after the wipe, the talk of how bad the tank is because he can't keep aggro starts between the Druid and Ret. I wasn't aware that while stunned for 2 minutes of a 4 minute fight where I can do nothing but wander about until the debuff wears off mean I'm a bad TANK. But oh well it happens. The group fell apart, I requeued and low and behold the Druid and Ret were there again.I know I'm out of practice tanking but really, if no one picks up Ursula when she pop's out and the DPS is too slow to kill the boss, that fight sucks. The Druid starts to berate me and leaves after dropping this dandy little line. I'm not healing that suck ass tank ever again. My pride was hurt.

Next group full of 89's downs boss no issue at all.

The stam trinket is NOT dropping, so I que'd one more time. This time we had a few 90s and a Druid healer from my realm. We wipe! We rez, run back in and pull again. We wipe again. I get a whisper saying I don't know how to tank so please don't ever do it again. He then drops group. 10 seconds later we get another healer, I pull and WHAMO, down goes Coren and my trinket drops.  I know I shouldn't have, I just couldn't resist but I sent him a tell telling him for some reason, a different healer was the key to downing the boss.

To be fair to all involved I did announce to the group, if Ursula isn't OT or kited I will get kegged (stunned) and we will not get the boss down. The hunter tanked Ursula with her pet and it went fast.

Moral of that story is, don't underestimate any fight, even if you have done it hundreds of times because you never know the group you are going to be with. Oh and good DPS is really nice to have.

TL;DR-
MoP is grindy and takes long to level. They did a nice job with the art work. Killing stuff in Prot is a burdensome process, 5 mans are easy, quest mobs are high in health and Coren Direbrew is not easy when people can't just faceroll the boss.

Still Crazy!

My current MoP experience-

Just a quick not to say I'm still around. Why? I love the game, its a good time sink and I missed my toons. Sounds crazy right? it kinda is but oh well that's who I am.

I'm enjoying the scenery or MoP. Blizz really did a nice job with the graphics, landscapes and mobs. I wasn't sure how seeing an all China theme would go but hand it to them, they pulled it off. Some places are beautiful and other dismal. All in all it works.

So where am I at? I am not raiding at all this tier or maybe not doing progression in any way but will enjoy an LFR or two. I chose the path to make some gold prior to leveling. I made about 12k gold in about 3 hours of farming with my hunger prior to touching Chasey. I was able to make my hunters prof's and go to level 87 with out hardly doing a quest. Farming turned out to be OK but they are soooo abundant it is a market killer.

I have all professions covered aside from inscription and engineering. I'm amazed that some are so easy to level and others are requiring you to be a level to make it to a vendor to by additional patterns. Not liking the JC discoveries at all. In my 4 days of looking for rare gems, I've gotten 1 pattern. Sadness...

I'm going to plan on getting in to the 'lay persons' guide to MoP pally tanking.

See everyone around soon and thanks for sticking around, if you have!

Paladin Changes 5.0

As long as you don't live under a rock, I'm sure you heard that 5.0 will be going live to serves the week of 8-28-12. Here is the changes you will need to know for the Paladin class. You can also look at my post for the talent calculator and Theck at Sacred Duty did a great tutorial on how to work the new talents (here) and lets not forget Rhidach giving us the full run down (here). Thanks to both of the, you guys are the best.

As for me, I'm not in game ATM but I think by next week I might re-up my sub to see how the new things are going.

I hope everyone enjoys MoP!

Below is the new abilities animated!


All the Paladin ability's can be found (here) click on picture to enlarge -

Paladin Talent Calculator 5.0

It can be found here .
If you look up toward the top right it will give you a link so you can save it and share it too.

Below is a hot link to all the paladin changes:
Paladin:
SKILLS
Talent Calculator
Holy Changes
Ret Changes
Prot Changes

Thanks (here)

And Azshira has made a BRILLIANT post about all the changes for paladins over at MMO-Champion.

Below is WOW's stat changes that you will need to know: (source) and (source)

Almost that time...

I hate to say it, it has been a solid friend to me, a great stress relief and I've met some amazing people. But sadly I must say this out loud...I'm probably finished with WOW.

Why? Well a few things come to mind.

I am so bored leveling low toons. My druid is fun or, um, sort of. My rogue is cool but it is a single mob killing machine. I like to pull lots.

There is no one to talk too! My guild is barren (see what I did there) it has 185 members and 3 people have logged on this week. Most of my realID friends are playing D3 and I'm not raiding.

I have about as much intrerest in buying and playing MoP as I do of hitting myself in the toe with a hammer.

Time will tell, I'm super busy with summer here so I'm in no hurry but the economical and smart thing to do would be to cancel my account.

Whatever the case, I will miss my blogging pals I've made.

MoP map and paladin changes.

Finally, the MoP MAP is in!

Every day new info comes in about MoP out of the Beta people. I haven't seen anything really worth mentioning. What makes me the authority? Well I'm not in Beta so I'm not to concerned about a quest not working right now or what the abilities of every class in game since so much is going to change before the game goes live. I'm trying to hit on the important stuff, so if there is something you would like to see more of, please let me know.

The MoP MAP -

(source)

A few minor updates to the Paladin class have been changed too:
Paladin (Forums)

• Blessing of Kings had a tooltip error corrected: Places a Blessing on the friendly target, increasing Strength, Agility, and Intellect by 5%.
• Blessing of Might had a tooltip error corrected: Places a Blessing on the friendly target, increasing mastery by 3,500.

Holy-

• Holy Light now costs 14% of Base Mana, down from 16%.
• Holy Shock now costs 16% of Base Mana, down from 18%.

Protection - 

• Mastery: Divine Bulwark now increases the damage reduction of your Shield of the Righteous by 8% (was 10%), adds 8% (was 10%) to your Bastion of Glory, and increases your chance to block melee attacks by 8% (was 10%).
• Consecration damage reduced by 10%.
• Holy Wrath damage changed to (4,300.5 + 91% of SPH).

Major Glyphs -

• Glyph of Exorcism now requires you to deal damage with Exorcism to get the damage reduction buff.

There was also a video of Paladin abilities posted: (Source)

Not using your head, Head Enchants are Gone!

A Real Head Scratcher!

File this one in the unexpected and in the trash can too. I don't understand the reasoning behind this. In mid Wrath they made these enchants BoA so you only had to grind the rep for any of these ONE time. So once you got the rep on one toon, you could get that enchant for any toon.

In an effort to make the game less grindy, they did what any smart company would do, they not only didn't put a new head and shoulder enchant in game, they now make the old one non-functional. Why wouldn't they allow enchanters or leatherworkers do the head slot and have scribes do what they are still able to do and create the shoulder enchant? No answers on either of those but my guess is the company line will come out and they will say "thats really not in their plans" which translates to "WE DON'T HAVE TIME OR THE RESOURCES TO DO THAT".

I'd be interested in hearing others thoughts on this.

Source: (HERE) and (HERE)

Ghostcrawler

Head enchants are gone.

We decided that putting head enchants on the various faction vendors wasn't working well with our design intent for the factions. There is a lot of max-level quest content in MoP, much of it focused around the reputation with the new factions. I think it's really cool stuff -- worlds away from the old Argent Crusade scourge stone days. :)

In previous expansions, the head enchants on the faction vendors served to force players into that content. You couldn't even choose which reputation to pursue -- you had to pursue the one with your specific head enchant. Our design intent for MoP is to give players options in how to play, and the head enchant design wasn't compatible with that.

Once we decided to no longer offer new head enchants, we made the older ones non-functional or else players would feel like they had to go back to older content or be missing out on power. This way, helmets are just no longer enchantable and you'll have one less required step to get a piece of loot ready to wear.

Shoulder enchants can now be provided by scribes, so those still exist, but they are also not part of the faction reputation system.

More MoP beta changes.

Sorry this is so long overdue but good news is there is almost no real breaking news for paladins in MoP. I'll keep it brief and hit on only the important things.

Only real interesting thing here is the change to Shield of the Righteousness. The way it is reworked is: Now damages the target, increase block chance by 10% and the amount of block by 30% for 6 seconds. On top of that it allows WoG to stack 5 times and increases the amount you heal yourself by 10%.

Other Beta highlights - Pet battles have been described and added. I'm not a huge fan of this new feature but some seem to like it. Profession details are rolling in and the numbers are far from being SQUISHED. I'll try and post the next info as soon as it comes out.

Paladin (Forums) (source)
Baseline

• Hammer of Wrath now scales from 161% of Spell Power instead of 71.6% of Attack Power.

Talents

• Holy Prism now affects allies within 15 yards, up from 10 yards.
• Sacred Shield now increases critical chance of Flash of Light instead of Word of Glory.

Protection

• Sanctuary now decreases damage taken by 15%, up from 10%.
• Shield of the Righteous now reduces the physical damage you take by 30% instead of increasing your block chance.

Retribution

• Divine Storm now causes 60% weapon damage, up from 50%.

MajorGlyphs

• Glyph of Divine Storm now heals you for 6% of your maximum health, up from 1%.
• Glyph of Hammer of Wrath is now Glyph of Exorcism and now affects Exorcism.   

Paladin (Forums) (Source)
Baseline

• Hammer of Wrath No longer generates a charge of Holy Power.
• Seal of Truth now scales from 13.8% of Spell Power instead of 2.8% of Spell Power + 5.6% of Attack Power.
• Supplication now lasts 8 secs, down from 15 secs. Now causes your next Flash of Light to be a critical.

Talents

• Holy Avenger now lasts 15 secs, down from 20 secs.
• Selfless Healer now also reduces the mana cost of Flash of Light. Now reduces by 35%, down from 50%.

Retribution

• Emancipate now costs 15% of base mana, down from 25% of base mana.
• Exorcism now scales from 79.6% of Attack power, down from 99.5%. Base damage reduced by 20%.
• Guardian of Ancient Kings now has a 5 min cooldown, down from 3 min.
• Mastery: Hand of Light now also affects Hammer of Wrath.
• Sword of Light has an additional effect - Your spell power is now equal to 50% of your attack power, and you no longer benefit from other sources of spell power.

Protection

• Mastery: Divine Bulwark now scales from 120% of Spell Power, down from 225% of Spell Power. Now also increases the effectiveness of Bastion of Glory by an additional 120% of Spell Power.
• Guarded by the Light now also increases your block chance by 10%. Your spell power is now equal to 50% of your attack power, and you no longer benefit from other sources of spell power.
• Shield of the Righteous Reworked - Instantly slam the target with your shield, causing 5,364 Holy damage, increasing your block chance by 10%, and the amount you block by 30% for 6 sec, and causing Bastion of Glory. Bastion of Glory - Increases the strength of your next Word of Glory when used to heal yourself by 10%. Stacks up to 5 times.

Holy

• Beacon of Light now has a 3 sec cooldown, down from 10 sec.
• Denounce base damage has been increased by 100%. Now scales from 122% of Spell Power, up from 61%.
• Guardian of Ancient Kings now has a 5 min cooldown, down from 3 mins. Every time the Guardian heals, it increases your haste by 10%.
• Holy Shock now deals 17,216 base damage/healing, up from 2102 base damage and 6522 base healing. Now scales from 115.6% of Spell Power, up from 57.8%.

Major Glyphs

• Glyph of Denounce has been reworked - Your Holy Shocks have a 50% chance to reduce the cast time of your next Denounce by 1.0 sec.

Pre-MoP dulldrums!

Just like anything in life change is inevitable. Change is constant, yet sometimes it sneaks up on you and you weren't aware it happened. I think it happens more in this game than in real life or at least it happens much faster.

Something occurred to me today as I was leveling up my Druid, I no longer play this game as a social outlet.

There was a time when I logged in to see the people that were on, even on a non raid night. At that time in my life, those were my friends I wanted to see and hang out with. Kinda like going to a bar and hearing all your buds yell "NORM". Not my name but if you watched Cheers you know what I mean. The human interaction were the reason I played the game at one point.

Now when I log on it is sorta like a job. I get what I need to do done, then go do some more. It isn't to make my toon better to raid, or even make it better at 5 mans. It is a grind for achievements or a mount. Then there is always a gold grind. In short WoW is like a job now more than before.

I bring this up because I virtually have no one on my friends list who plays anymore. The few RealID people are either raiding or leveling up their low level toons on another realm and they have since passed my level. Its almost as if I'm not in the cool club anymore. I'm not a socially awkward person, although some might disagree...lol I just don't feel like reaching out to the people playing currently. It isn't against anyone personally, it just not where my persona is at.

The guild I'm in is like a ghost town too. I'm almost exalted there so I don't wan to leave just because people aren't logging on. It is after all a slow time now. I'm guessing after the next patch where the MoP event happens the guild and the game will be more lively.

Anyone else experiencing a similar thing going on? or are you in a different place?

In the next few days I'll be updating the Paladin MoP info I've been sitting on. I've been doing finals for the last week or so and I'm a bit behind.

Til then, have fun on the game however you can.

Quicky about Beta (MoP Protection Paladins)

There isn't much for me to say about this other than to link the Beta thread and say read up on how the rotation looks to be going. Ghostcrawler even commented on the action. So far, believe it or not there is very little trolling and the discussion seems to be helpful.

TL;DR-

• Exorcism is gone (ret only) which feels slightly like an iconic ability is taken from us.
• Mastery is a block chance only now.
• Divine Plea is gone for a HoPo generator.
• Hammer of Wrath is gone (ret only) and there might be a lack of finishing moves for Prot.
• Righteous Defense is gone. This is the one that concerns me most, as we now lost our iconic taunt and we are left with only one taunt.
• Consecration is back on a 9 second CD and I like that.
• Some posters are saying the rotation is slow, clunky and feels like there are far to many gaps others including Ghostcrawler, say there is only very few times that we have open spots.

From Ghostcrawler (source) -

You shouldn't have to "wait to do things" much. The Protection rotation should include Avenger's Shield, Crusader Strike, Judgment, Consecration and Holy Wrath, with Shield of the Righteous and Word of Glory as finishers. You should almost always have a button to push. We don't have a problem with occasional holes in the rotation, so long as those don't occur with frustrating regularity.

MoP - Paladin T14 and talents.

I know most of you read MMO - Champion but there is so much info incoming about Paladin changes its overwhelming. So from time to time until MoP goes live I'll try and consolidate them. Remember this isn't set in stone and will change every day.

Here is the video of T -14:

And picture (found here):

Talent changes! (beta only) -

All of the info can be found here!

I'll boil it down as I know it, these are just the highlights. Please note, this is my opinion and not what Blizz wants it to be and will probably change.

Skills-

• Seal of Truth has replaced Seal of Command in the way it does damage. SoC is flat damage.
• Blessing of Kings - No longer allows for magic resistance, increases ONLY AGI, STR, and INT by 5%. It no longer increases STAM.
• Blessing of Might - Increases Mastery by 5 but no longer regens Mana.
• Binding Light - FINALLY! We get a disorient effect to all targets w/in 10 yards. Big Mana cost.
• Divine Protection -  No Longer reduces physical damage. Reduces magical damage by 40% for 10 seconds. Alas our half bubbles is gone!
• Improved Judgements - now cause a secondary effect.
• Seals - they are all different now. I suspect our seal as tanks will be Seal of Rightous for trash or multi target in boss fights and Seal of Truth for bosses as we have a dot with that.

Prot -

• Concencration IS BACK! Costs 7% mana and 9 second cooldown.
• Judgement of the Wise - Creates one charge of Holy Power.
• Guarded by the Light - Reworked: Increases your total Stamina by 15%. Reduces the chance you will be critically hit by melee attacks by 6%. Word of Glory is no longer on the global cooldown.
• Shield of the Righteous: Reworked: Instantly Slam the target with your shield, causing 4062 Holy damage and blocking the next melee attack against you. In addition, increases the amount your shield blocks by an additional 25% for 6 sec. 3 Holy Power. 1.5 sec cooldown.

Glyphs -

• Awesome post on Pally Glyph changes.
• Glyph of Contemplation: Allows you a moment of peace as you kneel in quiet contemplation to ponder the nature of the Light.
• ^^ makes me shake my head in amazement and wonder WTF is this?

Paladin (Forums)  AS OF -- 3/29/12

Skills

• Holy Light: Healing increased to 6579 to 7331, up from 4653 to 5185.
• Seal of Command: Now has a 1.5 sec cooldown.
• Seal of Insight: Now has a 1.5 sec cooldown.
• Seal of Righteousness: Now has a 1.5 sec cooldown.
• Seal of Truth: Now has a 1.5 sec cooldown. Now does [28% of AP + 14% of SPH] additional damage, up from [17.5% of AP + 9% of SPH].
  Retribution
• Seal of Justice: Now has a 1.5 sec cooldown.
  Holy
• Beacon of Light: Reworked: Your Holy Light will also heal the Beacon for 50*2}% of the amount healed. Your Holy Radiance will heal for X% of the amount healed. All other heals will heal for 50% of the amount healed.
• Daybreak: New. After casting Holy Radiance, your next Holy Shock will also heal other allies near its target for 50% of the healing done.
• Devotion Aura: Now reduces all magic damage taken, not just Fire, Frost, and Shadow.
• Holy Radiance: Now heals allies of the target for 50% of that amount, instead of a static number.
• Light of Dawn: Wording changed to remove "frontal cone".

Paladin (Forums) AS OF 2/27/12
Skills

• Avenging Wrath: Now has no mana cost.
• Blessing of Kings: Now increases intellect instead of stamina. No longer grants magical resistances. Costs 22% base mana, up from 19%.
• Blessing of Might: Now increases mastery by 5 instead of attack power. No longer increases mana regen. Costs 22% base mana, up from 19%
• Blinding Light: New. Emits a dazzling light in all directions, blinding enemies within 10 yards, causing them to wander disoriented for 6 sec. 3 min cooldown. Instant cast and costs 23.4% base mana.
• Boundless Conviction: New. You may store an additional 2 Holy Power beyond the maximum of 3. No ability ever consumes more than 3 Holy Power.
• Cleanse: Now removes all poison and disease effects. Now has an 8 sec cooldown. Costs 16% base mana, up from 14%.
• Crusader Strike: An instant strike that causes 160% weapon damage, up from 135%. Costs 3% base mana, down from 10%.
• Divine Light: Now has a 2.5 sec cast time, down from 3 sec.
• Divine Protection: Reduces magical damage taken by 40% for 10 sec. No longer reduces physical damage taken.
• Divine Shield: No longer costs mana.
• Flash of Light: Now costs 36% base mana, up from 31%.
• Hand of Freedom: Now costs 7% base mana, up from 6%.
• Hand of Protection: Now costs 7% base mana, up from 6%.
• Hand of Sacrifice: Now has a 40 yard range, up from 30. Costs 7% base mana, up from 6%.
• Hand of Salvation: Now has a 40 yard range, up from 30.
• Heart of the Crusader: Increases your mounted speed by 20%. This does not stack with other movement speed increasing effects.
• Holy Light: Now has a 2.5 sec cast time, down from 3 sec. Costs 14% base mana, up from 12%.
• Improved Judgment: New. Judgment causes a secondary effect.
  • Holy - Judgments of the Pure - Judgment restores mana.
  • Protection - Judgments of the Wise - Judgment grants Holy Power.
  • Retribution - Judgments of the Bold - Judgment grants Holy Power and the Physical Vulnerability effect which increases the amount of physical damage the target takes by 4%.
• Rebuke: Now has a 15 sec cooldown, up from 10. Costs 11% base mana, up from 10%.
• Reckoning: Hand of Reckoning has been renamed to Reckoning.
• Redemption: Now costs 75% base mana, up from 64%.
• Righteous Fury: Now has a 1.5 sec cooldown.
• Sanctity of Battle: Haste effects lower the cooldown and global cooldown of your Judgment, Hammer of Wrath, Crusader Strike and Hammer of the Righteous. Divine Storm is no longer affected.
• Seal of Command: New. Fills you with Holy Light, causing melee attacks to deal 10% additional Holy damage. Instant cast. Costs 16.4% base mana.
• Seal of Insight: Now also increases healing done by 5%. Costs 16% base mana, up from 14%.
• Seal of Righteousness: Fills you with Holy Light, causing melee attacks to deal 5% weapon damage to all targets within 8 yards. Instant cast. Costs 16% base mana, up from 14%.
• Seal of Truth: Censure DOT now deals [17.5% of AP + 9% of SPH], up from [13.5% of AP + 5% of SPH]
• Supplication: Formerly known as Retribution talent Crusade. No longer increases the damage of your Crusader Strike, Hammer of the Righteous, and Templar's Verdict by 30%, and the damage and healing of your Holy Shock by 30%. For 15 sec after you kill an enemy that yields experience or honor, your next Flash of Light heals for an additional 300%. Holy Light is no longer affected by this ability.
• Turn Evil: Now lasts for up to 40 sec, up from 20. Costs 10% base mana, up from 9%.
• Word of Glory: Now consumes up to 3 Holy Power, down from all. Now has a 1.5 sec cooldown, down from 20.

Protection

• Avenger's Shield: Now costs 7% base mana, up from 6%.
• Consecration: Now costs 7% base mana, down from 55%. Cooldown is now 9 sec, down from 30.
• Guarded by the Light: Reworked: Increases your total Stamina by 15%. Reduces the chance you will be critically hit by melee attacks by 6%. Word of Glory is no longer on the global cooldown.
• Holy Wrath: Sends bolts of holy power in all directions, causing Holy damage divided among all enemies within 10 yds and stunning all Demons and Undead for 3 sec. Costs 9.4% base mana. Instant cast, 9 sec cooldown.
• Judgments of the Wise: New. Your Judgment hits grant one charge of Holy Power.
• Sanctuary: New. Decreases damage taken by 10% and increases armor value from items by 10%.
• Shield of the Righteous: Reworked: Instantly Slam the target with your shield, causing 4062 Holy damage and blocking the next melee attack against you. In addition, increases the amount your shield blocks by an additional 25% for 6 sec. 3 Holy Power. 1.5 sec cooldown.
  Retribution
• Crusader's Zeal: New. Your autoattacks have a 20% chance to increase your attack speed by 25% for your next 3 melee swings.
• Divine Storm: Now costs 3 Holy Power and no mana cost or cooldown. An area attack that consumes 3 charges of Holy Power to cause 50% weapon damage as Holy damage to all enemies within 8 yards.
• Exorcism: Now generates a charge of Holy Power. Now also has a 20 sec cooldown, up from 1.5 but is instant cast. Now costs 4% base mana, down from 30%.
• Hammer of Wrath: Deals 4230 to 4676 Holy damage and generates a charge of Holy Power. Only usable on enemies that have 20% or less health or during Avenging Wrath. Now costs 3% base mana, down from 12%.
• Hammer of the Righteous: Deals 20% weapon damage, down from 30%. Now also applies the Weakened Blows effect, which reduces the targets physical damage dealt by 10% for 30 sec.
• Inquisition: Consumes a maximum of 3 Holy Power to increase Holy damage by 30%. Lasts 10 sec per charge of Holy Power, up from 4.
• Seal of Justice: Melee attacks do 16% additional Holy damage and reduces the targets movement speed by 50% for 5 sec. Instant cast. Costs 16% base mana, up from 14%.
• Sword of Light: Increases the damage you deal with two-handed melee weapons by 25%. No longer increases spell power by an amount equal to 30% of your attack power and no longer increases your chance to hit with spells by 8%.
• Templar's Verdict: Now costs 3 Holy Power, up from 1. Deals 260% weapon damage, up from 235%.
• The Art of War: Your autoattacks have a 20% chance of resetting the cooldown of your Exorcism.
  Holy
• Beacon of Light: Now has a 10 sec cooldown. No longer costs mana.
• Denounce: Deals [1593 + 61% of SPH] Holy damage, down from [2664 + 61% of SPH] and prevents the target from causing a critical effect for the next 4 sec, up from 3. Costs 9% base mana, down from 20%. 1.5 sec cast time with a 30 yard range.
• Devotion Aura: Grants all party and raid members within 40 yards immunity to silence and interrupt effects and reduces all fire, frost and shadow damage taken by 20% for 6 sec. Instant cast. 2 min cooldown.
• Holy Insight: New. Increases the effectiveness of your healing by 25%. Increases your mana pool by 400%. Allows 50% of your mana regeneration from Spirit to continue while in combat. Grants hit rating equal to 50% of any Spirit gained from items or effects.
• Holy Radiance: Now costs 14% of base mana, up from 7%.
• Holy Shock: Now has a 40 yard range for friendly and enemy targets.
• Infusion of Light: No longer affects Flash of Light.
• Judgments of the Pure: No longer increases your casting and melee haste by 9%.
• Light of Dawn: Now consumes up to 3 Holy Power.
• Sacred Cleansing: Enables your cleanse to dispel all magic effects from the target.
• Tower of Radiance: No longer grants Holy Power on Holy Radiance casts.