Blizzard FTL

I don't think any class/spec in the history of WoW has ever been nerfed this bad, or at least sunk to the depths that we have in terms of PVE.

PVP wise, I don't care if we are good because my bread and butter is PVE raiding. 

We won't be fixed by Blizzard, maybe a tiny buff but make us actually raid healing viable and fixing our glaring weaknesses? No way.

Blizzard hates holy paladins. I've said it before and people always scoff at it but I don't see how it can't not be true.

I have other alts now that I may level but my holy paladin is my beloved main. I am sure I am not the only one that feels that way, invested the time and thinks the same way I do. It is just plain sad to see how badly my class/spec is being treated.

To all those people at Blizzard responsible for destroying the beloved spec/class of so many people, I hope karma gets you all.

P.S. People that say holy paladins are fine, you really don't know what you are talking about because no healing class should require a "rotation" to heal. We are not fucking DPS. The current healing model for us has nothing to do with "adjusting" but actual problems with mechanics, HPS and abilities.

Stars H LK Kill

Stars 3 Healed HM LK with a Holy paladin, Holy priest and Disc priest. No mana tide totems! Seriously full of respect for this holy paladin in terms of their mana management skills. I've done some HM LK attempts and I hate how low my mana goes.



I have A LOT of real life stuff going on so my posts are going to be ultra sporadic. Just warning you guys.

Please Get Authenticators

We always hear about it but never think it will touch our little world. Well, it does.What am I talking about?

Getting hacked.

It is the single worst thing that can happen to a WoW player 's account because you lose everything that you have invested in your hobby. On top of the time, gold, gear and other materials that is stolen; you lose the feeling of control, trust and good will.

No, I haven't been hacked but some people in my guild have and the ones that hit home were my 2 WoW friends, one I knew irl.

The worst part of it all is that the 2 WoW friends that got hacked, they really had no reason to have gotten hacked. They don't buy gold or surf the internet much. The only thing they didn't have were authenticators.

As targets, they were paydirt in the amount of damage the hacking caused them.

Legendary Drama

Ever since this orange mace came out with Ulduar, it's always been the subject of much debate.

• Who's gonna get it?
• How do we decide who gets it?
  
• Is it worth it?
• Can we make it?
• Why didn't so-and-so get it?
• Do we really have to farm it?

When Ulduar was the biggest, baddest instance out there - there was no question about it, you had to farm the legendary or try to if your progression wasn't up there.

Now that there are two raid instances out above Ulduar's loot level, many people even question the worth of a legendary mace's presence in the raid. There is a tremendous time involved to farm the necessary amount of shards on top of the needing to be in a guild able to kill Yogg Saron to make the mace.

This is even harder when you take into account all the different raids one can complete in the week that all give out item level loot equivalent or higher than that or 25 man Ulduar.

And on top of that, all heroics reward Triumph Emblems, which can buy 245 item level gear. Though some guild's like Larisa's don't mind farming it even now, many guilds have members that are unwilling to farm it or go back to Ulduar.

So with all that in mind, why is it that people still get mad over who gets the shards?

Raid Optimization for Holy Paladins

I always felt that speccing, gearing and gemming a holy paladin is pretty straight forward. We had only a few spells and it is absurdly easy to pick up how to heal on a holy paladin due to our small toolbox of direct healing spells.

The true mastery of the holy paladin I feel comes with learning the tricks of the trade and managing the CDs, ensuring you can pump out the healing numbers as well as keeping on top of mana regen - just like every other class.

I really believe that half of the holy paladin's ability to perform in raids is preparation, even more so than other healing classes. You have to gem right, gear right, talent right and glyph right. This is because of the weird dichotomy of our healing arsenal - a big, inefficient heal or a small, efficient heal - so we must optimize for usage of 1 spell over the other (though not used to all exclusion). The other half of the equation is execution, which takes practice depending on the difficulty of the fight along with experience to get a hang of healing.

So here I am, reading Rhidach's post about this site called Armory Datamining. I like these types of websites because they tend to compile information in WoW in a different way, revealing things that are new or from a different angle.

Anyway, I went to look at the holy paladin data, expecting there not to be much deviation. Lo and behold, I was wrong.

I may be presumptive but I really want anyone reading this that is not preparing properly as a holy paladin to sit up and take notice! There is leeway if you want to do things differently but there is still such a thing as wrong gems/glyphs/talents/etc for holy paladins to do! So here is my little troubleshooting attempt.

BS/JC Gemming

This is something I have never understood. Perhaps I am doing it wrong but...

A lot of Holy paladins are BS/JC understandably for the JC gems + 2 extra BS slots. However, why is it whenever I see BS/JC, they always seem to put the JC gems in random slots?

For me, I like to always put my 3 JC only Dragon's Eye gems (usually Brilliant) in the 3 extraneous BS slots:

1. Belt Buckle
2. Bracer Socket
3. Glove Socket

Why you ask? Well, I like to switch out gear a lot depending on the fight. If I have a set socket that my JC only gem is always in then I know that no matter what gear I switch in and out. It will never interfere with my Dragon's Eye gem! That way I won't be limited in gear combinations just because of either too little or too many JC only gems.

It also makes no sense for the JC only gem to be put into a colored socket because most holy paladins (HL ones, of course) ignore socket color to just do all Brilliant + Nightmare Tear. Even so, FoL paladins can still benefit from this gemming method.

Maybe HL paladins have gotten lazy and just wear one set of gear no matter what. Well, all I have to say to that is...

Don't be lazy!

VDW needs separate gearing/gemming. No, it is not for epeen because the faster VDW gets healed up, the better for the raid! There are also other fights in ICC that I use FoL gear or you may just want to mix up some different types of gear to increase haste or mp5 or what not. Gemming in this fashion makes gearing a lot more flexible!

If you're like me, I have a hard time letting go of gear because I'm always like, well I could use for this and that, etc. I always try to get the most mileage out of my gear.

What do you guys think?

JC in Cataclysm

I am like most other paladins a BS/JC, which I really believe has been the best combination so far. The fact that I actually wear plate is just a perk.

It's funny because in TBC I used to be Mining/JC simply because I wanted to be able to level up JC while leveling. I never min/maxed in TBC. I only finally dropped Mining in WotLK after Ulduar and power leveled BS so I could stack more int after the great nerf of 3.2 for holy pallies.

So I have always been a JC and now more recently a BS, in terms of being a crafter for professions. The funny thing is the only reason why I wanted to be a JC in TBC was because it was the "new" profession of the expansion, just like how belfs were the "new" race of TBC.

Yes, I am a very silly holy pally. Ahh, the days of noob-dom. =P

So talking about trends in TBC, in WotLK, the "new" has become pervasive and completely ubiquitous.

Of course, JC being such a dominant profession is backed up by its very nice benefits.

• Flexibility - You know how engineering usually better for PVPers and maybe some classes in PVE? JC is beneficial to everyone, regardless of their class/role or PVE/PVP because it stacks more of the stats you want
• Customization - Enchanting is a lucrative profession and it's nice to easily enchant anything but the rings only enchant AP, SP or stam, which are nice but not as customizable as the JC only gems with stats that you can stack such as res, spirit, strength, armor pen, etc.
• Money making potential - Even if you don't sell gems or cuts, you still do the JC daily!

JC wasn't always this nice, so I really hope they don't make it the "worst" profession in Cataclysm to make up for its popularity in WotLK. Even so, I still would like to stick with JC at the very least as one of my 2 professions in Cataclysm.

Right now, I'm really happy with what I have heard so far about JC in Cataclysm. No danger signals (yet).

According to MMO Champion:

• New Jewelcrafting dailies will be introduced.
• Many cuts are being added to support the new Mastery stat.
• Some new Cataclysm jewelry recipes have completely random properties, and can sometimes create superior and epic versions.
• Jewelcrafters will have some fun new (and potentially lucrative) vanity items, including fist weapons, rhinestone sunglasses, monocles, and stardust (sprinkle on players for entertainment).

Hahaha, completely makes JC all worth it for me!

Since Blizzard is cracking down on the NDA stuff, I guess we won't be hearing too much about Cataclysm, which means not much about the content is too spoiled. I just hope we can hear enough about the game play and class changes to give constructive feedback to Blizzard. I think everyone is at "wait and see" in regards to the 10 versus 25 man raid changes.

Crossing fingers! Till next time!

Before Cataclysm Comes!

Everyone is talking about Cataclysm but I don't really want to get too much in the know because I still remember questing in Howling Fjord and just enjoying it so much! Everything was so new and it was just like "wooooowwww" to me so I want to be able to experience that again in Cataclysm. I was such a tourist and I unashamedly loved it!

Anyway, people may have started to lose interest in WoW due to the end of the expansion coming up and summertime fever but I have a bunch of things I still want to do before Cataclysm comes out. I have no clue if I will get to everything but I will certainly try.

1. Get over 9000 achievement points - I am around 8400 achievement points atm.
2. Get a Solace trinket to play around with
3. Get a new weapon! And a whole bunch of other gear on my list
4. Complete ToGC 25 - all I have left is Anub'arak
5. Level an alt to 80. Currently, my DK is at 70 and my priest is in her 40s so we'll see which one is going to hit 80 first! =X
6. Get maxed mining on one of my alts.
7. Try to complete the legendary. This is likely going to stay a dream. I actually have a better chance of getting Shadow's Edge than getting the legendary T.T (I already have the 2 quest items)
8. Aim for the Ironbound Protodrake!
9. Maybe the 10 man Frostwyrm? Likely another pipedream as I don't do 10 mans regularly enough =(
10. Hit 100k gold on my paladin for Cataclysm (only 50k right now).
11. Freaking kill Archimonde! (Only TBC raid boss I have NOT killed)
12. Get a bridle for my squire! 
13. See 25 man Algalon and try to kill him! 
14. Get exalted with Consortium and Lower City 
15. Get Loremaster before Azeroth gets destroyed

What is your to-do list?

Interesting Statistics to Me about Me

Matticus recently did a post about his "Surprise Statistics" so it made me take a closer look at my own. So yes, this post is going to be about me. All about me. Me, me, me! =P

I'm not going to post everything but numbers that I've pruned that I thought was interesting. Hopefully I don't get carried away but knowing me, that is likely =P

You have been warned!

By the way, follow my twitter if you want me in small doses =P

Here we go!

Combat
Largest hit received: 31,286

This is such a lie! I think this just means they don't count the overkill portion so if you get one shot by something, it just registers as your hp at the time.

Largest heal cast: 2,459,898

Where the heck is this from??

Total healing done: 4,167,510,604

Holy crap, I've done a lot of healing in my WoW "career" =X especially when compared to my damage done (888,519,041)

Why 25 man raids man may still be better in Cataclysm

 The WoW blogosphere had been pretty quiet as of late I felt but today, wow! A flurry of posts suddenly!

I know, I know, everyone has been buzzing over Blizzard's huge announcement today about 10 and 25 man raids dropping the same loot in Cataclysm.

People have been making the same points, all equally valid, about why 10 man raids will overtake 25 man raids, especially since 10/25 mans will now share the same lockout.

1. Easier organization
2. Intimacy & sense of comaderie
3. Less logistics
4. Less people necessary
5. Casual friendly

It seems the entire blogosphere has collectively agreed that 10 mans will be much more attractive in 25 man raids. Yet I want to throw an idea out there.

I think Blizzard is amp-ing up to make an announcement for Cataclysm that will make 25 man raids more attractive than 10 man raids.

Far fetched? I think not, it really feels to me that Blizzard is setting the stage for something. And what is that something? Here goes...