Remains of a Paladin

Fixing Warsong Gulch

2009-06-03T18:57:00.003+10:00

Warsong Gulch is my least favourite Battleground. It ranks as the least favourite amonst the general WoW community. In theory it's a very fun enterprise. A 10 vs 10 Capture the Flag. It's small scale, fast paced and tactical.

Where it falls down, and has for 4 years since it's inception, is the constant slide into 35min stalemates where both teams are in possesion of each others flags. Apart from being very frustrating - it deters players from the BG itself and makes obtaining reputation with Silverwing Sentinels, an already slow and painful journey, even more annoying.

Fortunately, tokens aren't needed nearly as much as they used to be but it doesn't soften the blow on stupidly long games which will often result in ONE token and not much honour for your time committed. Tokens are still handed in for nice honour gains and are needed for the Silverwing Tabard (often needed for the Tabard achievement) and the PVP mounts (often required for that respective acheivement (and because a lot of people want one).

In patch 2.4 Blizzard attempted to counter the problem of 30min+ turtle matches by adding a debuff which is applied to the flag carriers if there has been no capture after 15min. The debuff is doubled after another 15min. The change did absolutely nothing to fix the problem. Games still went for 30min+ and reaped little benefit for the time invested.

My solution to the problem is a simple one, yet I believe it to be effective. Allow flags to be capped even when yours is missing.

What would this do? It would make games VERY fast paced. At the same time it would force teams to actually apprehend the other faction in the process of tearing back to the base with their flag. The focus would be on applying all class abilities to protect your flag carrier and eliminate any attackers, whether by force or crowd control. Yes, crowd control would finally make a comback rather than sheer burst in numbers.

Some may think that this would just lead to druids or rogues getting Blessing of Freedom spammed until they made it over the line. While this may work sometimes - your enemy may be doing the exact same thing. The team is then required to snipe the enemy whilst protecting their own runners. Something which I believe will be exciting and fun. It will require the same, if not more, teamwork and games will cease to become long, tedious, frustrating and worthless.

The potential problem of just zerging a flag home is self countered by NEEDING to slow down an enemy presumably doing the same.

You can argue that this tactic is essentially what should be used now in WSG - it's generally true however by allowing the flag to be capped at will you remove any chance of an infuriating turtle game and increase the match pace tenfold.

Here's hoping. I want to enjoy WSG!

Exorcised

2009-04-22T19:57:00.001+10:00

A minor patch hit the realms today, 3.1.1

The patch was only small, around 8mb, designed to fix a few bugs mostly. However, included in the patch was an undocumented change to Exorcism. Just last week in the huge 3.1 patch, Exorcism was given the ability to be used on all targets in an attempt to add some sustainability to Retribution after some tweaks to their burst were made.

Just this morning we've been told this is no longer usable on players. Apparently it was causing "too much burst" for, what we believe, were Retribution paladins talented and glyphed for it. As Holy, and Protection in my secondary spec, it's not a huge issue. It was nice bonus for when some punk tried to gank me.

The thing that gets me is that how did it only last for a week? 3.1 was in testing for months. Players are reporting crits with this spell from 3k anywhere to 5k. The higher of the scale presumably from a Ret pally aimed at a low resilience target. As Holy with 2k+ spell power mine barely crittically striked for 2.7k even with my 3 points in Sanctity of Battle. There were no Arenas last week so it can't have possibly come from whiney Arena players.

While I'll miss having a 30y damaging spell in my arsenal, it's not the end of the world for us, especially my Holy brethren but I'm just lost by the reasoning of the nerf. It just boggles my mind that his was only learned to be "too much" during the first week of the patch and changed with no warning and presumably no real info regarding the necessity.

I <3 Huckabees... I mean Jewelcrafting.

2009-04-20T00:16:00.004+10:00

Right before 3.1 hit the live realms I bit the bullet and decided to power level Jewelcrafting. I was bored, wasn't farming herbs any more due to my large wallet and had always wanted the shiny JC only gems for my gear.

I did some maths and figured I'd need roughly 2,200g to get it up to 400+. I underestimated it pretty badly. For people wanting to level it fast and at whatever cost - expect at least 3,000 and allow for 3,500-4,000g if you're server is expensive or you get bad luck. If you're patient you could do it for the 2,200g that I quoted - however I'm a VERY impatient player when it comes to levelling professions.

I was sitting on 13,000 gold (spent buttloads on decking out my prot gear not long ago plus some other little things) + another 2,000 that a mate owed me so I thought I would call in that loan to pay for it all.

All up JC cost me 3,200 gold to get up to 420 (to get my trinket and gems). I've made back 1,500 of that already, and more steadily coming in, but I'm happy with the upgrades to my character. As Holy I gained another 2,000 mana which, fully raid buffed, leaves me sitting a whisker under 30,000 mana (!) and a nice little mana regen from the trinket itself. As Protection I gained about 1,500 hp which I can't complain about it - again with a nice dodge proc on the relative trinket.

I ummed and aahed about whether I should drop Herbalism or Inscription before levelling Jewelcrafting. I decided it was pointless having JC and Herbalism together (have a high level mining alt for prospecting) as I fish for a lot of my income rather than gather herbs. I also did not want to part with my Scribe only shoulder enchants because I've not even looked at the Sons of Hodir. Inscription has also been making me a bit of cash since 3.1 due to people buying lots of Glyphs. Unfortunately I've not been lucky enough to get my hands on one of the new Glyph recipes which are selling for ridiculous prices at the moment but I'm really not fussed too much.

That itching feeling.

2009-04-19T23:51:00.002+10:00

Well it's been almost 3 months since I made a post - purely out of laziness.

I joined a new guild around the time of the last post and still soldiering on with them. We cleared everything a while back now (Sarth +3 on 10 and 25), had a few Undying clears, couple of Plagued proto-drakes etc. Unfortunately haven't got an Immortal yet but we're not that fussed due to 3.1 having arrived.

So anyway - the big patch. Three point one.

-Dual Specs
-Ulduar
-Multiple class changes
-much much more

It's been very well documented over the last few months. I'll comment on a few things that have effected me, for better or worse.

Infusion of Light got changed for what I think is the better. It was intended primarily as a PVP nerf because Holy Paladins in Arena were blasting out near instant Holy Lights and making all the Arena fan boys scream blue murder. It was also believed to be a knock down for PVE stop us pumping out 1.2 second 10k+ heals. Holy has had a recent reputation of being VERY mana efficient with the amount of crit that many of us have - Divine Plea already copped a nerf to slow down our regen - but I think changing the casting speed reduction to increased crit is only counter intuitive to the other nerfs. Personally - even as a PVE player mostly these days - I find it a buff for both sides of the game. Season 6 is going to see healers become stronger again so bigger heals and more regen can only be good for that.

Dual Specs has been quite nice. I've not used it all that much. Given it's been out less than a week - but I'm glad none-the-less to have it. Farming Naxx25 for so many weeks left me with a very schmick Protection set that I had always wanted (33k unbuffed it's quite ok with me).

Not too much too write home about other than that. I'm definitely enjoying the patch and all the other things it's offering.

Glyph of Ghostcrawler

2009-01-23T09:04:00.004+10:00

As usual - a knee jerk reaction to something that should have been picked up a long time ago.

Glyph of Holy Light nerfed

No thought put into the "nerf", just a typical response to "QQ" - even an attempt to say otherwise. I've avoided the "we hate Ghostcrawler" bandwagon for a long time but he's gone one too far now. I doubt his committment to providing balance to this game in all aspects now.

Why nerf the range to something less than was originally intended. As was feared - it was nerfed harder as a result of the buff.

I really am dumbfounded they would make a change like this when the solution is simple. Base the splash heal off the effective heal. How hard is the concept to grasp. 8 yards is just as gimp as 5 yards. 10 yards makes is effective and reasonable - as was originally intended to be the range. 20 yards, as I said previously - was too much.

Glyph of Holy Sh*t

2009-01-21T23:52:00.001+10:00

It has unfortunately been deleted now, however last night on the WoW Healing forums, a tear jerking thread of epic proportions took place over the sanctity of the "new" Glyph of Holy Light which went live yesterday morning.

The Glyph itself allowed Holy Light to heal 5 players nearest the target for 10% of the value of the heal. The range is 20 yards.

eg. I heal tank for 10k with my Holy Light. The 5 closest players to him will receive a 1k splash heal.

This glyph has been in the game since 3.0 hit in October last year, yet until Priests had their CoH "nerfed" to a 6 second cooldown, no one has uttered a word about this Glyph. I'll admit, the range was a measly 5 yards, however the healing this provided has not changed at all.

It seems a few Priests are scared that they are now "useless" in the raiding environment now with the 6 second cooldown added to their previously spammable Circle of Healing.

I really am amazed at the "QQ-ing" that was generated within hours of the patch being released. It wasn't "MY SPELL IS TOO WEAK" it had become "THEIR SPELL IS TOO POWERFUL" which is rich coming from Priests. Arguably the kings of AOE healing, combined with a powerful stamina buff, strong HoT spell and a protective shield.

When the 'buff' to the Glyph was changed from 10y to 20y I honestly believed that it was too much but I wasn't complaining. The splash healing was negligible and was not a smart heal, nor was it instant cast.

Anyway, a few similar threads have popped up, including some Paladins that are worried it will lead to a more severe nerf. With the way Blizzard tossed Retribution around, it's a fair call to be freaking out over Holy now as well.

There is so much more I could include about this - from both sides of the argument but I'm not going to essentially repeat what's being spewed out all over the healing forum at the moment, you can see that for yourself.

I will say this however - to the Priests complaining - you need to re-evaluate your style of healing around the CoH cooldown. You are quite literally screaming murder over the change to ONE singular spell. If you rely on that solely, you should perhaps re-think you're spec, class or even game. To the Paladins saying it's fine - don't expect it to last. The most appropriate action I can see and am willing to live with would see a reduction in range back to 10 yards and the splash heal tuned to be a percentage effective healing, which I believe would have been originally intended.

A Noble Inscription

2009-01-13T10:26:00.005+10:00

So I dropped a profession when 3.0 went live in lieu of Inscription like 100's of other loonies who had the same great idea. I thought I would jump on the bandwagon as soon as I could and get a slight head start on the crowd. I had all my herbs ready to go and was one of the first 5 to max out Inscription on the realm (as far as 3.0 would allow). Unfortunately even though I was slightly ahead of the pack, the pack was enourmous and really not that far behind.

I regretted it almost the very next day. I had after all dropped alchemy which was making absolutely truck loads of gold even the dying days of TBC. I soldiered on with it in Wrath and continued to complain about how underwhelming it was as a profession. Not only in the economy but in how bloated and inefficient the mechanics and menu are for it.

After a mate said I should focus on making the Darkmoon cards I went off to Sholazar Basin and spent an hour collecting up all sorts of herbs to mill. 6 stacks later and I have 3 Snowfall Inks to show for my work.

Great. So much for making money out of this at all. I continue to bitch and moan to my friends and guild mates about it. I get to a friend's place for a little LAN and continue to complain. He promptly says "mate you get much higher rates milling Icethorn and Lichbloom, go gather that".

The next day I gave it another shot and low and behold I was getting about a 75% millrate for Snowfall Ink. I made my first card. Five of Storms. Sold for about 150g which wasn't too bad. It at least kept my head up for the Profession.

The next day I go and gather some more, didn't take too long. Next card, Eight of Nobles from the infamous Nobles Deck. Another day later I try my luck again and create the Ace of Nobles. I am on fire. I probably won't ever get another Nobles card again as it was just teasing me not to drop it and go back to Alchemy but at least I got some return on the thing. Sold the pair of cards for 2800g.

There's actually a funny story to that as well. My guild were finishing off last week's Naxxramas run and after we 1 shot Gluth I posted in general chat as a joke "WTS Eight and Ace of Nobles" and I promptly get whispered by someone who'll take both for 2800. Fine by me, I pulled them off the AH and sold them to him.

Still the interface is incredibly clunky to use. It looks very very rushed, like the devolopers made it on the fly. Three menus labelled as "other" ? Please, that's just sheer and utter laziness. Also instead of having a menu for every class why don't they do what they have done with every other profession and call it "Glyphs" in the main menu and the have the classes as Sub-menus. It's such an easy fix which would remove half of the enourmous main menu. Anyone who has seen the Inscription UI will agree it's some of the worst work that Blizzard has ever done and they should be ashamed to let something so horrible make it to the live realms. It almost feels beta.

Outside of that I hope that dual specs will allow for Inscription to actually make money from Glyphs. I'm disappointed over all with the usefulness of the profession. Darkmoon Cards won't be expensive for ever and I just can't see Glyphs ever making money. On top that, the only 'perks' to the trade are the shoulder enchants. While Leatherworking receive bracer, glove and leg enchants; Blacksmithing receives sockets to gloves and bracers; Tailoring gets leg and cloak enchants and Jewelcrafting can create a slick assortment of trinkets and BoP gems. Even Alchemists get their stones and buffs from their creations.

Overall Inscription is and was a very poorly planned and produced tradeskill for Warcraft. I really do hope that it is revamped sometime soon because it has a lot of potential to be fun and profitable like all the other crafting professions.

I remembered!

2008-12-19T18:36:00.002+10:00

Well, 9 hours later it finally hit me! I had only just finished listening to a Beatles album and it clicked.

I was thinking, who was the smart cookie who obtained the old PVP rank of Sergeant with the character name of Peppers. I think it's genius. Just the other day I named my 2v2 "Sgt Peppers", 3v3 "Lonely Hearts" and 5v5 "Club Band".

I wonder how many other funny names people with PVP titles have managed. Personally I have seen "Champion Champion","Knight Fright" and the well known "Rival Rival" who is also in a guild called Rival which I thought was rather witty.

I forgot.

2008-12-19T09:35:00.002+10:00

I actually had something really awesome I was going to talk about, I was so pumped about it that I forgot what it was!

I was doing Heroic: Halls of Lightning (yay Champion of the Frozen Wastes) and we stopped for a break when it hit me. So I logged on and before I could type anything we pulled again and I had to get back to healing. By the time we finished that pull I had completely forgotten what I was going to write about and it's been an hour since then and I still can't jog my memory.

So annoyed.

ps. I'm on holidays from the 20th until the 29th but I'll probably make a post while I am away for the 4 or 5 people that read this.

So you want to solo Onyxia?

2008-12-18T11:20:00.005+10:00

So I'm not the first person to ever do it, but I still thought I should give it a shot.

It was very easy, very long but very fun, at least the first go. I don't think I can be bothered doing it again until I get an Achievement or Feat of Strength for it. I'm pretty sure it was an Achievement in beta testing or on the PTR at some stage but it was removed because 'not everyone could do it'.

But isn't that the point of Feats of Strength? They don't count towards your points or tally, but merely show impressive things that a lot of people aren't able to get?

They nerfed the gold drop again which I thought was stupid, presumably to stop people solo-ing her for 200g every 3 days. It's down to 130g + all the loot. Before Wrath it was at 189g + loot, anc even more before BC. I don't think the nerf was really necessary, solo-ing her takes at least half an hour.

Total time was 38min. I started the stopwatch a little late, but it was exactly 10:30am when I started.

The New Holy Paladin. Spec and Itemization

2008-12-15T12:55:00.004+10:00

I've been umming and aahing over what to write about since I hit 80 about 10 days ago. Whether it was how easy the early content was, how poor inscription still is or how mediocre the factions are.

I've now decided on how poor some of the itemization on the tier gear is when you look at how Paladins are encourage to play and spec. The Holy set is horrible. I'll be honest and say that I have been quite lucky in gearing up over the last week-ish and nearly every drop went my way. I picked up the Heroic Nexus mace on the first run and in fact my first Heroic about 30min after I dinged 80. I then immediately headed to do Heroic Utgarde Keep and got the fairly shiny ring from there along with a handful of nice blues from some other places. As of today, I'm sitting on 1720 spell power. Not too shabby if you ask me.

With all the changes to Holy in this expansion pack, it has completely overhauled the way in which we heal. I actually struggled in my first 2 heroic dungeons just because I wasn't used to the new spells and talents (having levelled as ret and not had all my talents and spells at level 70 when I was Holy).

With Divine Plea and Illumination, I believe that Holy Paladins are insane not to gear and spec for crit, crit and more crit. Of course, this is all within reason and you shouldn't sacrifice our other very important stats like Intellect and Spellpower. Mana Per 5 Second (MP5) is almost a null stat for Paladins now because of the immense mana return we receive from Divine Plea, Illumination and even a few whacks with Seal of Wisdom. Not to mention class buffs like Replenishment etc.

With the correct talent spec, you should quite easily be able to get 35% crit with nothing other than level 80 dungeons gear (heroic and vanilla) and a couple of Badge of Heroism rewards. I don't believe there is any reason for a healing Paladin to ditch his 20 points in Retribution to gain 8% crit and 5% reduction in mana cost to instant cast spells (among other things).

Currently, I'm sitting on 34.5% crit (unbuffed) and while gearing up I am trying to keep this above 33.33% while maximizing my Spellpower and Intellect. My guild is only tinkering in the current raid dungeons at the moment because a few core members have been little slow in leveling up and then everyone is away on holidays soon so actual raid progression is slim.

In the meantime I've been looking to the vendors for my next upgrade, in the form of the T7 chestpiece or gloves. Now I've been leaning away from the gloves because Sartharion is such a pushover and I'm happy to just wait my turn on the drop but when I look at the chest piece I'm even less impressed.

Lets look at the stats on them both, and then at what I'm using now.
T7 Chest Piece:
+67stam
+69int
2 sockets
+60 Haste
+85 Spellpower
+18 mp5

vs

Scaled Amour of Drakos
+60stam
+60int
+91 Spellpower
+77 crit rating

If I was to "upgrade" from this level 80 blue, to a Tier 7 piece, I would be losing 2.1% crit and 6 spellpower. The crit loss is too large. 2.1% just doesn't come along like that. Now even if I were to gem the chest piece with +15 crit gems, I still wouldn't make up the difference and I'm still just short on the spellpower (though it is a negligible amount, you'd at least expect and upgrade when purchasing Tier 7, especially the chest). All there is to be gained is mp5 and a bit of haste. Haste is good, but at these gear and progression levels it's a wasted stat and mp5 is completely void now. It's a bonus stat and not much more. A very disappointing piece of gear overall.

Next is the gloves. Lets take a quick look.

Cracked Epoch Grasps (with gem and gem bonus)
+49stam
+46int
+55 Crit
+66 Spellpower

vs

Tier 7 Gloves
+49stam
+51int
+30 Haste
+49 Crit
+68 Spellpower

The stats are almost identical. I needn't explain this one to you, it's quite clear already.

What I don't understand is why the Tier items are so mediocre. Sure, Heroic blues are meant to be a prelude to raid items, but when they flat out beat them, or are not worth replacing, something is wrong. Even looking at the leg piece I discovered that my current ones are better than it, admittedly they are the epic ones from the Heroic Stratholme dungeon, but again the stats are all over my Tier 7 counterpart. Gemming the T7 brings it back up to the same stats as the Heroic item. The T7 helm is worse than the Argent Crusade reputation helmet and it drops off the end boss of the current tier of progression.

Something is the matter here.

Leveling so far.

2008-12-02T10:31:00.008+10:00

Well when I first started this post 2 days ago, I was saying how I was half way through level 75 and had just finished the Wrath Gate cinematic. I also mentioned how far everyone had shot ahead while I was away down the coast. But alas, I have roped them in and caught a couple up. As I post this I will have taken a nice chunk out of level 78 and I'm getting quite excited about level 80.

I must say I have had a reasonable amount of fun leveling up. I don't know too many people who don't find leveling a chore regardless of when or where they started but Wrath has been enjoyable for someone who got completely turned off leveling again ever after The Burning Crusade (TBC). I hated TBC for the same reason as most people did and it was compounded by mates leveling up a little after me and helping them, then helping their alts through outlands and then attempting my own high level alt. He crashed and burned for months at level 65, even after the 3.0 experience nerf/buff (however you look at it).

With all this levelling hate I was unsure if Wrath was going to make me hate life again regardless of how good the content was.

Well, so far I'm impressed. As much as I've hated on the necessity of leveling the burden has been very much relieved by fun, interesting and innovate quests that I wish they had thought of in TBC. Heck even Nessy's epic grind was fun this time!

I'm very looking forward to 80, however...

I'm a little surprised at the lack of upgrades I've recieved thus far. I know they said that high end epics were going to last a little longer than last time, but this is a tad... annoying?. I'm making the journey to level 80 as Retribution as my gear was fair decent and I wasn't going to cry myself to 80 as Holy. I've completed every zone except for Icecrown and Storm Peaks (where I sit AFK while I type this) and so far I've picked up 5 upgrades for my gear. All for Ret, and only 1 was a significant upgrade.

My set was mostly Karazahn bits to start with. I had 5/5 T4 but opted for the legs from Bloodboil in Black Temple while keeping the quite powerful 2p and 4p T4 bonuses for Ret. I had Gorehowl for my weapon, with Deathfrost for a bit of zing. Both Karazahn melee rings. Dragonspine Trophy from Gruul (much to the dismay of every rogue and hunter on the realm) and Shard of Contempt from Heroic Magister's Terrace (again to the dismay of everyone else who could never get it drop). Add in a couple of various off set bits from Karazahn and Gruul's Lair and you get the picture. Now Retribution was quite obviously not my main spec, I'm a Holy Paladin at heart, but I had picked up a solid Ret kit along my raiding journey in TBC ready for Northrend.

I received a ring fairly early on which was a slight upgrade from one of mine. About 15ap or something miniscule. Next was a neckpiece which was more of a sidegrade. Then eventually I picked up a nice belt which was a decent upgrade and finally the only truly worthwhile upgrade was the De-Raged Waraxe from the Ampitheatre in Zul'drak. Even then, the stats were equal, but the actual damage on the swing was more than enough for the switch.

Along the way I've been tempted with this and that but nothing that I could warrant breaking my 4p T4 bonus for. I quickly picked up a bunch of new gems for all my gear which has extended the life once again. Just from re-gemming (for free thanks to guild mates leveling their JC) with Northrend gems I gained 222ap. Since then, nothing even looks like replacing my T4 until Heroics and 10man Naxx (I've even had a hard time getting replacements for my Holy set, which still sits at +1320 unbuffed).

Speaking of gems, none of the quest gear has any now. I've seen 1 piece in 8 levels and 7 zones. I know they were showing off sockets in TBC but I was expecting a few more at least in Northrend.

Overall nothing really to complain about, I was just expecting my T4-esque gear to at least be challenged a bit more. Sure, T5 and T6 and Sunwell gear I knew would last into the first raiding tier at least, but T4, come on give me something to work with here.

Gapocalypse

2008-11-21T10:36:00.004+10:00

Well, I was about to make a Wrath update post last weekend and then BAM by side of the city got completely smashed by a cyclone. Yes yes my mates all made the "lol a boomkin came through" etc etc about hurricanes and cyclones. However the important thing is that no one died (amazingly, you should see the carnage) and that I finally, after 4 days, have power, phone and internet re-coupled to my house.

Here is a picture of my dad's mushed car to keep you occupied for a while. (Courtesy of the lovely Maxine. Much love!)

ps. Now that I have actually come back online, I'm due for my week down the coast, so I'm STILL stuck at level 73. Happy Wrathing.

Shave and a Haircut

2008-11-10T12:01:00.004+10:00

While every Night Elf went and got a Mr T inspired mohawk and every Human male booked an appointment with Goku's hairdresser in an effort to get their hair style OVER 9000! us poor females were left with boring and uninteresting do's that make even the 1950's bee-hives look cutting edge.

I've not experimented much with other races, because my Paladin is a Human, but suffice to say our "new and improved" hair options are considerably weaker than others and don't really offer anything exciting at all.

My Paladin was created with silver hair in a ponytail many, many moons ago. I loved it. However after two years, everyone needs a hair cut, even my little pixelated powerhouse.

I wanted something reminiscent of the flamboyant creations of anime. Something fun, something wild, something better than that god awful tomboy abomination that made it to the live realms. My male counter parts get a carbon copy of my lovely pony tail, but where's my foxtails? Where's the loose curls, the braid, the pigtails, the half bun? Where is anything that looks remotely attractive on my character? (say those last two sentences in a Carson Kressley voice)

Does anyone else feel jipped?

Epic gear, not so epic enchants (and gems)

2008-11-09T13:06:00.004+10:00

So I'm going to try not let this plummet into a tirade of rants and expletives but I can't make any promises.

Today I saw a Shaman in some T4 pieces and other T4-esque gear. Now, all possibilities like "alt" and "off-spec" aside, there is no reason not to have proper gems and enchants in this sort of gear. Nothing gets me off-side more than seeing people in epic quality gear and putting either the wrong gems in them or using crappy white and green quality gems into them. He had +12stam gems in his T4 resto shoulder piece. Why buy an expensive gem like that for a resto piece? I'm baffled. He was also repping a couple of blue and green pieces however he was mostly epic so I was led to believe he was an alt or off-spec (or perhaps just as likely, completely clueless)

If you're going to use poor gems. At least use gems appropriate for your class and spec.

This Shaman didn't get me as worked up as the Hunter saw no less than 2min later

Walking around Stormwind in 2p T4 and 2p T5 along with a handful of ZA pieces was this fellow. For starters he was gemmed for AP instead of Agility (not a huge point of issue). Secondly, they were green +12ap gems. His Bow had a a +8dmg scope on it. His T5 shoulder piece had no enchant on it, along with poor gems. Trollbane, a Hunter weapon of great desire, had no enchant either and again sporting these seemingly unending Bright Blood Garnets.

Sure, we're about to receive Wrath and all the gear is going to become meaningless, but I've seen cases just like this during the prime of the content. Not to mention how incredibly easy gold is to attain now and spend that extra 10g on a decent gem.

My question is, how do guilds and their leaders allow people to essentially waste the gear? I'm not talking welfare epics here and PVP items that any old kid can pick up, I'm talking T5 loot which doesn't just appear in your inventory.

When I joined my first serious BC raiding guild last year they had only just entered T5 content. They had barely got The Lurker Below down a week before I had joined. I had geared up with my own guild and some average Karazhan guilds. I had put a lot of effort into my gear but had refused to spend the extra bit of cash on blue quality gems, even for the handful of epics I had acquired. Upon applying for this guild, my application was accepted by the Guild Leader provided I had replaced all my gems (only 4 or 5 at the time) with rare ones. I thought "fair enough, I've worked my way into a starting spot in a solid guild and I want to keep it".

When we hit T6 content at the end of last year, we were expected to use the epic quality gems now available to us even in the remnants of our T4/5 gear. The guild provided most if not all of them for free or at a minor cost to the guild bank so generally it wasn't a big deal.

I may be starting to sound a little elitist but it's always something that has bugged me. A lot of things in World of Warcraft bug me, like Paladins using spirit gems.

But that's another story.

Title complete

2008-11-08T14:16:00.004+10:00

Thanks to Jonathan (Relasz) for pretty much doing in 2 minutes with his eyes closed what would have taken me hour.

Perfect. Now I can start to add content :)

Second?

2008-11-07T17:34:00.005+10:00

Well, I've still not finished with the title image, but it's getting there. I've not had much time to finalise it and I'm pretty average with digital imaging (read: photoshop and fireworks). Infact I'm typing this from my girlfriend's new Laptop as we prepare for her b'day party tonight.

Because of the above mentioned reasons I've not even had time to string together my own original post and instead I'm going to link a very good article from BoK.

It's basically a simple yet intelligent idea for the achievement system. Implement class achievements, especially since many have had specific class quest lines simplified. For many this is seen as 'making things too easy' or catering for the every whining 'casuals'. It's a bit iffy, but as suggested, creating an achievement would at least let people see that there is something to be gained from going and completing these often well designed and lore rich journeys rather just clicking "Train Me" and skipping it.

I'll expand upon this tomorrow morning as I have girlfriend agro and a bottle fine spirits waiting for me.

UPDATE: As I was saying, BoK and his legion of followers have added their own suggestions to expand upon his idea and I for one would love to see this.

Perhaps include them as a "Feat of Strength" because after all they are specific to each class and providing achievement points for it would be slightly unfair. Even though the points are pretty much restricted to vanity pets and items it would be simply easier to record them under "Feats of Strength".

Naming the feats could be as "Master Class" (I don't think it's been used already) or perhaps something a little more RP and you must obviously complete the required quests and achievements for your appropriate class.

As a side note, I'm a bit of lore fiend on my Paladin and I've actually completed everything put forward on BoK (except Exalted with the Argent Crusade of course, however that will be a focus next week once I get my copy of Wrath in my dirty little hands).

First!

2008-11-06T11:00:00.000+10:00

Well due to being a little bored right now and browsing my favourite sites across the net I stumbled upon Blessing of Kings again. I've read the blog before and it's quite a solid setup and I thought I would start my own this time around.

Before I begin recording my life and crying about this and that and such things that bloggers do, I'll make it clear this is not going to be a carbon copy of my favourite sites and other similar websites which I hold in high reputation.

So welcome to my blog. It's not going to be just about Paladins, contrary to popular belief.

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