Entries in Paladin (13)
Bracing For Change
The moment of truth is about to arrive. As many of you noticed the second part of the patch has already began hitting our hard drives, and it's widely believed that Tuesday marks the release of 3.0.2. I am incredibly excited, but at the same time I am bracing myself for a bit of an awkward phase, and a somewhat rough transition.
Things are about to change, and change a lot.
I was not lucky enough to get a beta key, so in order to prepare I have been forced to spend my days reading blogs, websites, and patch notes to figure out what they are doing to my class. It seems like most classes have some pretty major changes coming, but some are bigger than others.
Of course where I have been paying the most attention is my Paladin. To state things simply, they changed everything. From what I can tell, they changed the basic mechanics of the way the class operates. Our seal-judge-reseal way of life is gone. Now we have persistent seals and judgments that are not tied to the active seal. Not only that, but we have an entire new list of spells that seem to replace a big part of my tanking threat rotation.
Seeing all this will be incredibly fun, but I can't help but feel I will be starting at square one. I will have to relearn how to play my class entirely.
I admit that I get in a bit of a rut pulling with avengers shield, doing my standard judgments, and spamming holy shield. Now I have spells like Shield of Righteousness, Seal of the Martyr, and a whole mess of "hand" spells that will all find a good home on my hot bar. It is going to take some time to figure out my new seal and judgment rotation. We no longer have one Judgment, but three. While sealing and judging won't take up as much of my time, I feel it will still be important to manage seals and the debuffs we are placing on mobs very carefully. I imagine my rotation before and after the patch won't look anything alike.
It's a bit of a frightening prospect. Luckily we have this 4 week window to romp through old content so we can focus on new abilities, and not have to worry about learning the instances. With any luck I will have all this mastered by the time Wrath drops.
How about your class? Is this going to be an easy transition, or are you going back to the drawing board with me?
Your Place In The World
Bastosa on Wednesday, September 17, 2008 - 37 Comments Tags: Hyjal, Paladin, Raid, battle for mount hyjal, protection, undead 
Ever feel like you found a dungeon, zone, or raid that was just made for you? Depending on your class, spec, and general play style some places just click with the way you play. As a protection paladin I've been close to experiencing this a few times. The Plaguelands were full of undead and great paladin lore. It was definitely one of the first places my tankadin felt at home. Further down the road there was Kara. A masterfully designed instance, and again crawling with undead. This had to be it right? Not quite.
After all this time playing my Pally, I am proud to announce I have found my place. My "Zen" instance. The raid to end all raids for the protection paladin: Mount Hyjal. I zoned in there for the first time ever a few weeks ago, and it all just feels right. Waves of mobs just charging into my consecrate, piles of undead that I can blast with my Holy Wrath, and pulling stray mobs off an over zealous DPS is just an exorcism away. Even the bosses are all demons, sending our threat through the roof. I know we are designed for AOE tanking, and this instance seems to be designed for us.
For those that have never seen the raid, Hyjal is set up much different than others. It is similar to the 5-man instance The Black Morass. You must survive waves of undead that descend upon various towns you must protect. Instead of pulling the instance, the mobs come to you. After you have downed 8 waves you get greeted by a boss. It can be rather hectic, but with all these mobs charging into your raid the Prot Paladin is invaluable for keeping everything under control.
I have never had more fun in a raid than I did my first night in Hyjal. Not only did I get to tank in a way I never have before, I even showed up in the top 10 of the DPS chart! I think I am in love. We still have a ways to go, and I know there is an obstacle or two in our way, but I am thoroughly looking forward to working through this instance. I've heard from many people that this instance gets repetitive and tiresome after a while, but I have a feeling I will be enjoying it much longer than others.
What about you guys? What zones seem designed for your class? Where are you in your element? Surely there are other zones that seem to be such a good fit for various classes and specs. So what are yours? If there isn't one, what would it take to make one? I'd be curious to know.
What Happened? Where's Your Guild?
Well here's an interesting follow-up to my last post here at ProjectLore.com.
In a strange turn of events, I was on WoW the other night. I haven't had much time to play 'cuz I got all these episodes to make for you, but I had a moment or two to do a fishing daily.
While I was running around Shatt, I saw a friend pop on that I hadn't seen in some time. I clicked on his name to see where he was and saw that he was no longer in a guild.
What happened? This guy was a great pali tank and he wasn't in a guild? Kara, SSC, TK, BT, Hyjal, some Sunwell and no guild? I watched this guy go from pali healer to pali tank over the course of a few months to be one of the best tanks I've ever seen. So what gives?
As you can see from the screen capture, something stupid happened (btw - the names have been blurred to protect the innocent (I think they're innocent - who knows)). His guild /gbooted him right out of the guild for being afk for too long. WTF? Their main tank booted 'cause he had to go afk to help his kids out? His RL children needed help and the guild booted him. What a-holes.
Now who knows if the his side of the story is the complete picture, but I do know of more stories where someone was kicked out of a guild for some of the stupidest reasons I have ever heard. I've seen people get booted for not showing up to raids or bad mouthing the guild or ninjaing gear in pugs thus soiling the guild's name - all of which are mostly legit reasons to /gkick someone, but I've also seen some absolutely stupid reasons people have been booted.
What's the raziest /gboot you've seen or heard of? Did someone not wear their tabard to a raid? Did they not rez someone when it was easier for them to run back? Did they not bring enough mana biscuits?
So what was it? Let me know.