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.

The reason LFR has issues!

People like the person I seen below!
The Scroll of resurrection raises its ugly head in a terrible way for many playing the game currently. Zones that are crowded, players not knowing their class but this is a totally special beast.

TBC prot pally tanking is not gone!
Welcome to WoW Vulgatron. Players like you are really the bad in this game. I can handle those who really don't know how to play their class, those who don't care and go ungemmed/enchanted, those who are running with friends and alts to gear up a main. But this kind of person and toon is really the worst.

You can tell this person has a tad of knowledge about the game I'm going to bet they have multiple toons, in fact I bet they have several toons on a few accounts. Or this wouldn't be a SoR type toon.

But looking over this guy, I see so much bad going on and it isn't because of lack of knowledge. Its because they don't want to go the correct route and play the game as designed.

In TBC prot pally's used Int for threat, its apparent this guy still thinks that is the case or maybe someone is feeding him bad info. My guess, is it is neither. My guess is he is trying to circumvent the system and get a higher ilvl to play in the better gear giving dungeons.

Can you image having this guy join your 5 man or LFR? This is the nightmare that everyone discusses so passionately on forums and community sites.

If I were to talk to this fella, I'd advise him on his spec, the fact that Resilience is not a tanking stat and that Int and spirit are no goes for pally tanking. On top of that pieces he is buying or using are obviously not meant for tanking. The bad part is, people like this would never listen and it would be a shouting match and then turn to a pissing contest. These are the know it alls that would blast you for a wipe in 5 man for doing anything remotely close to this.

Gratz to you Vulgatron, you make the GHoF for being a pure douche and gearing a prot pally with [Pauldrons of Conviction], [Vicious Pyrium Legguards] and [Cresent Moon] Clearly all tanking gear or NOT!

You might ask why I post or care about something like this? As the games community detoraites into the anonimity of the internet, people like this are the ones who cause the most trouble while running with them, or are to ungeared to help a subpar group succeed and its only out of pure greed.

Have you seen anyone this bad from SoR yet?

Prior to the Mist.

I can feel the end near! Oh, no no, not of me playing the game. Right now it is an amazing time killer and something I can just get away from my reality and well, I guess that is what a game is supposed to be, right?

I am not tanking anything right now, maybe only multiple mobs but not 5 mans and no raids. That time has come to pass for me. I'm to busy.

I do however want to see what MoP holds. So I have made a few goals I want to accomplish before MoP hits.

• #1 goal is to hit 85 with my Druid and Warrior. This is going to take some time with my Druid, he's only 40.
• Make GOLD! Lots of GOLD. Not sure where I want to total I want but I know I want to go into MoP and not have worries about gold.
• Have my Warrior to be max Blacksmith level.
• Have my Dwarf Pally hit 85 (currently 83).
• Get exalted with my Human Pally in its guild so I can get the mount.

Just a few things I'd like to do with my toons prior to MoP hitting. What do you have plans for? Do you plan to keep playing the same main?

I'd love to hear others plans.

The 1% club!

A few weeks back I posted a blog about a hunter soloing Algalon in 10 man. A few days after that MMO-Champion put up the numbers of who had completed and how low the total toon count that had actually cleared this fight in 10 and 25 man. I was pretty shocked to see it so low. This still is and will always (probably) be my greatest achievement I've done in game. Graph below shows more info.
(Source)

The reason it is so special to me is I put the run together, did this with a casual group of people who didn't live on the game, it was still a pretty relevant fight at the time (we were only the 7th group on our server to kill him) and none of us were over geared for it. Our GS was around the 240 range. None of us had heroic ToC gear. On top of that we did it the first night we faced him, last time we pulled.

This was a memorable fight, most of the people don't play the game any longer but of SWC rocked this fight and became 1% ers.

Any memorable fights you've got stored in the memory bank?

I AM IRON MAN!

Not really, nor do I intend to sign up for this challenge. Below are the rules for this contest (source) and they seem pretty steep. It really shoots at the hard core crowd wanting a challenge and allows those who don't want the end game to be everything.

Not sure if there is an official title, price or achievement. This seems like something that will keep you involved and make you work hard to finish and it won't be easy.

There is a huge thread if you click the source link up above, I'm sure like most WOW threads, there is plenty of bickering and nit wits placing their two cents in a conversation. It does however seem that there will be lots of people giving this a go to start with.

ENJOY THIS!

RULES below:

Players across Azeroth have recently embraced a new, very personal achievement: leveling a character "Iron Man" style. What started out as only a small movement, this bare bones, no-frills style of play has now transformed into a community-wide call-to-arms known as the Iron Man WoW Challenge, inviting World of Warcraft enthusiasts to see how close they can get to level cap with only the barest of necessities.
The goal of the Iron Man WoW challenge is simple: level from 1 to 85. The catch, however, is that you must accomplish this task without the assistance of talents, class specialization, stat-improved gear, professions, buffs, item enhancements, or other players. And if you die? Well, then it’s back to square one.
Here are some of the latest rules:

1. All gear employed must be White or Grey. Also, no Heirlooms of any sort.
2. No transfer of gear, items, or money from any other character (yours or others).
3. No gear enhancement(s), thus no socketed gems, enchanting or reforging. Exceptions exist for class abilities (example: rogue poisons).
4. No specializations, talent points, or glyphs. This restriction also applies to talent points for pets.
5. No professions or secondary skills. An exception is made for First Aid.
6. No potions/flasks/elixirs (except those labeled as quest Items).
7. No food buffs or other external buffs (this includes buffs from items and other players).
8. No grouping or assistance from other characters, even if not grouped.
9. No dungeons/raids. No battlegrounds/arenas.
10. No guilds. An exception is made for Iron Man guilds. No guild perks.
11. No Recruit-A- Friend activities. The intention of the challenge is that it be done without assistance.
12. No add-ons that assist in combat and/or leveling.
13. THE BIG ONE: No deaths. Character death for any reason disqualifies the character.

Permitted:
- All mounts
- All bags/containers
- All quests (including holiday and daily quests)
- You may train and use all your class skills (including your own buffs)

Interested? Awesome! To sign-up for the Iron Man WoW Challenge and discuss your progress with fellow participants (once you get started), head on over to the official forums. Additional rules and details can also be found on the unofficial Iron Man WoW website, hosted and moderated by players like you.

Hunter SOLO's Algalon!

I love my Starcaller title, it is bar non my favorite title I earned. My guild did it when it was still pretty relevant, in fact we were the 6th guild on server to do it. Yes, ICC was out but just barely. We didn't have ICC heroic gear. We rocked Ulduar hard modes in one night and went back to Algalon the next week. We set up a plan on how to do it, I was to second tank him. Out other tank who had a great DPS set ended up second tanking him and I 3rd healed. We spent the entire hour, pulled our last time with 7 minutes on the clock and killed him in ONE night. We were so excited and amazed. I was a great fight, one of the best I've ever been a part of.

So I want to send out a big BIG congrats to the hunter 5 tiers did something I never thought could be done! Amazing job man! Here is the link and the video...

Still around

Not a ton to say as I haven't been playing much. In fact I haven't played at all. I'm logging in as I type this to check on things and run some daillies. I'm still around.

I heard rumor that a new patch is launching this week. I guess I have to do some look as to whats new there.

Life has been crazy, school started and I have a huge milestone birthday. Life has been busy.