Ulduar Paladin Checklist, Part III

Warning! Long post ahead!

So I didn't expect there to be a Part III but I was writing my gear list and it got longer and longer with all my additional comments so here is Part III =X Parts I & II here if you missed them.

Gear, continued

Weapon: Replacing Hammer of the Astral Plane +42 crit/+31 haste/+461 SP/+44 int

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  Turning Tide -5 crit/+17 haste/+59 SP/+6 int Perfect itemization right here. Only thing better is the legendary!
  
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  Runescribed Blade +10 crit/-31 haste/+89 SP/+7 int With so much haste on Ulduar gear, maybe having a weapon with a lot of crit is the way to go, plus that spell power upgrade is nothing to sneeze at =X There is spirit on this weapon though so let the priests/druids/locks/mages get this weapon first if they need it as they benefit more from spirit than us paladins.
  
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  Guiding Star -42 crit/+18 haste/+89 SP/+4 int Loss in crit but in this case, the sheer gain in SP can tip the scale in favor of this as an upgrade.
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  Torch of Holy Fire -42 crit/+17 haste/+59 SP/+3 int The Guiding star is better so I'm sort of meh about this weapon.
  
• Furious Gladiator's Salvation -31 crit/-31 haste/+131 SP/+10 int (Dazzling Forest Emerald) So no crit or haste but even more SP gain than the legendary! Well, I still wouldn't use this weapon personally but if you can make up for the loss of haste and crit elsewhere, this weapon can be a great asset for you.
• Constellus -13 crit/-31 haste/+131 SP/+9 int (Dazzling Forest Emerald) The sheer gain of SP might make the loss of crit and haste worth it but I feel the next weapon on the list is better despite it being a lower item level.
  
• Aesuga, Hand of the Ardent Champion +3 crit/-9 haste/+89 SP/+21 int (Brilliant Autumn's Glow) Negligible loss of haste for other stats, =)
  
• Val'anyr, Hammer of Ancient Kings +5 crit/+15 haste/+126 SP/+10 int Legendary, baby!!! Perfect paladin itemization and a nice proc! New BIS for sure.

Guild Beef

This is a copy of my guest post over on WoW Fail blog. Enjoy!

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So everyone knows that the pride and joy of "pro" guilds when it comes to raiding is getting to claim world firsts. This is how guilds like Nihilum, SK Gaming and Ensidia entered commonplace knowledge of the more serious WoW raiders. Right now there is a stranglehold by EU guilds of world firsts it seems. Of course there can only be one world first and that mean pro guilds are essentially vying in a neverending competition until a victor is decided. With competition naturally comes shit-talking and rivalries, then shenanigans or drama.

I never really thought it possible in the WoW hardcore raiding scene but apparently it does happen.

Example here on the Ensidia website in the comment section of member, Buzzkill's blog with an inflammatory post demanding all guilds to basically, BRING THE PAIN! LOL

Quite amusing to find a crack in the professional facade that Ensidia and other "pro" guilds usually maintain. Usually we associate guild drama with the little people that are unruly and chaotic (such as Wow Insider's Guild Watch segment) rather than the highly regimented and strict "pro" gamers.

Ulduar Paladin Check List, Part II

Warning Long post ahead!!

So in Part I, I talked a bit about my spec, glyphing, gemming and macros. The biggest part supporting a holy paladin's ability to heal is the gear though. The gear that we choose ultimately allows us to fulfill our roles in raids as healers. I am of the school of thought that paladins should go for intellect with a balance of crit and haste!

Keep in mind that once you get to ~50% crit and 5-600 haste, each point of crit/haste you stack beyond that will not improve your healing ability as much. Thus, you can treat crit and haste as having a “cap” so to speak. There is no cap to intellect stacking though since it increases spell power, crit and your mana pool! I'm currently wanting to hit 30k raid buffed mana but as of now, I am stuck at 29.5k raid buffed if I wear certain trinkets.

On a side note, I dislike mp5 very much so though I will not discount it entirely but I will not focus my entire gear set around stacking it exclusively. Meaning that if a particular piece of gear that I am using has it, then whatever but I will not specifically seek out gear solely for it having mp5. So let's get to it!

Gear

I am listing items from highest to lowest preference. Net gains or losses are being compared to the item being replaced. The only stats considered are crit, haste, SP and int in that order.

Site Changes & WoW Update

Hey guys!

So I'm sure some of you have noticed some of the tweaks I have done to my site such as adding the row of links below my header along with adding feedburner! I finally figured out how to add it and I just redirected my feed though the true implications of that I do not know yet. Yay, I have 40 subscribers! Welcome! Sorry that the first post you guys see after subscribing via feedburner is this drivel =X

I've noticed recently that everyone and their mothers seem to be posting strategy guides to downing bosses in Ulduar so though helpful, I doubt I will post my own. It would take way too much work anyway. I might come up with one when I have a more comprehensive view on Ulduar in general but right now I am still tentatively figuring out my optimal healing style for Ulduar.

Ulduar Paladin Checklist, Part I

So since Ulduar is out, I wanted to do a more comprehensive analysis of the gear out there along with detailing some of the reasoning behind my spec/glyphs/gemming. I wound up writing a long post so I'm going to split it up so it is more manageable to read.

Gems

I will be listing in order of preference from highest to lowest. I don't have the new epic gems included as they are not widely available at this time.

Ulduar So Far

So I managed to hit Ulduar late Tuesday night with my guild. We had a lot of people sign on and sadly some people that normally raided with us logged due to the instability. We still managed a 25 man roster though we had to sit out a good DPS warrior as he logged on a bit late.

I saw a lot of other guilds outside of Ulduar. Excitement ran high as people chattered on vent. Our poor lock couldn't get a summon and other people were wondering why they were not being summoned despite their repeated requests. Seems like there were also a lot of other guilds outside the instance as well.

When we finally managed to all zone in, it was pretty late. Our GM and RL were also basically discussing via vent how to do the raid strat for Flame Leviathan and listing all the boss' abilities. The explanations took quite a while and I feel most of the raiders, myself included, started to zone out and stop paying attention. When it came time to attempt Flame Leviathan, all of us zerged him and got him down to ~40% but we wiped due to the Overload. It took us about 3 tries. Hilariously, on the successful attempt, my boyfriend was to be loaded into the catapault but the driver aimed it wrong and my boyfriend died! LOL! Kind of funny. I was on a bike, tarring and slowing down the boss. Quite fun to zoom around on that bike.

Razorscale was the hardest fight so far I had to heal, worse than 25 man OS 3d as it was really really hectic avoiding the flames along with the random fire bombs that rained from above as well as healing through the chain lightnings. Sorry no screenshots as I was too busy running around healing =X

My boyfriend and I also tried to get the new boss in Vault the next day but the server crashed on us and the entire raid got stuck while clearing the trash right before the boss. When we all finally came back in, the raid basically evaporated. Very frustrating.

Well I hope we get to down Razorscale and move on to more bosses in Ulduar. It feels refreshing to see new content despite all the bugs and server problems.


See you guys in Ulduar!

Ulduar!

Boy I sure am glad I made a comprehensive list for myself to refer to since Ulduar is out a tad earlier than I expected.

Kind of funny how things panned out. First people were like, "Oh it's a distinct possibility that Ulduar will be out this week." Then it became, "Oh, the patch is probably going to hit this week" and now it's like "PATCH COMING OUTTTT OMGGG!!"

Hahah, well we have been waiting quite a while for this patch so it was only a matter of time.

Anyway, I'm betting I don't update as often as I will probably be raiding content!

No clue as to what my guild has decided yet with the legendary. I sense some potential drama there. I'll keep you guys posted =)

Till next time!

Woot! Finally!

After 2 months of wanting this achievement, I finally got it! I am now "the Undying" DUN DUN DUN!!

Yay! Unbelievably, my raid leader's alt/new-main-in-waiting was also in group and got a crap ton of upgrades too =) This raid run was actually full of bantering on vent and the mood in general was relaxed, unlike our previous runs, which were more tense and sober. Of course there were stressful "OMG" moments here and there but Lady Luck smiled upon us and we got what we set out to achieve.

A rant on loot

So I had a guild meeting last night because of loot issues with EPGP.

There was a problem with people getting full EP while waitlisted for a raid (25 man OS 3d) that they had no business getting invited to nor would they ever get invited to because of their gear/skill level. (greens/blues? never done naxx? or heroics? constant fail?). This of course led to problems when it came to 25 man Naxx as there are still some pieces progression raiders needed but due to the EP that casuals on the waitlist earned undeservedly, the casuals or friends/family would take key items from raiders and thus, hinder our progression.

Well the officers fixed that by making people waitlisted get 50% EP since it is really not fair to get full EP for an entire raid day while doing BGs and then coming in on farm days to take loot from raiders that said person will never use for progression raids. All in all, I'm really happy with how the guild leadership handled things. They listened to raider concerns and implemented policy to make sure things were fair pretty quickly.

However, there were some complaints.

Sholazar Basin

So I finally got around to doing Sholazar Basin over the weekend because I was helping my boyfriend level his herbing alt, who was level 78 and now 79! It is a very fun place to do quests. I felt like a tourist as I kept taking screenshots. I got a big kick out of some quests as you can see =)

How it all started

So around 2 years ago, I started playing WoW.

My boyfriend had already been playing and his other friends also played. When I started going out with him, he was still leveling his mage to level 70, the max level at the time. I remember always being curious as to what he was doing and he would tell me that it was so boring because no one would help him as all his friends left him high and dry since they were all max level already. He really didn't play much but I remember watching him inch up slowly level by level though he didn't play much in my presence.

I never really played an MMORPG before except maybe a free one named Knight Online for like 10 days though I used to play console RPGs (FF7 FTW!). I don't quite remember how it started but I think I asked my boyfriend how to use his character. So he lent me the controls and showed me what spells to use to kill mobs. I remember when he said "mobs" I thought, why are they mobs? I was so nub =X

=)

Happy Anniversary, Honey!

If I hadn't met you, I would have never played WoW.
I would never have met all my online friends.
Just as our relationship had our ups and downs, so did our journey in WoW.
Our bittersweet and unforgettable 2 years, I wouldn't trade it for the world.

So here's to us:

Two fools in love.