After the dawn…
So 4.0.1 has dropped, and we've had 3 days or so to get used to things. So how are things stacking up atm?
Well....
Tanking has become a metric fuckton more difficult, because DPS at the moment isn't tuned now for level 80, as Blizzard have stated that it's now tuned for level 85 content. Sorry, but what sort of company fucks over their paying customers for 2 to 3 months until the majority of the raiding player-base hits 85? Taking into consideration that we won't be able to level past 80 at all for 2 months until Cataclysm is released.
What about the levelling process if everything is tuned towards level 85 mechanics?
Gawd.
Anyway, I'm sticking with it, despite all this, because whilst it's a lot more difficult to hold threat against DPS who are suddenly pulling gigantic DPS figures from out of their nethers (30k isn't unheard of against Festergut for instance for some classes - and yes, that is the DPS figure for ONE player, not the raid as a whole!) it will work itself out over the medium to long term. I have faith!
However running 5 man content from Wrath, which was famously all about the AoE-fests is a trifle more difficult as we're already lumbered with the Cataclysm mechanics where AoE tank threat has been nerfed and has become exponentially harder to hold threat on a pack of anything more than 2 mobs. Seriously. Stuff we'd faceroll hold threat on has suddenly become a huge challenge. Not least because DPS tend not to give you time to crank up threat. Previously this wasn't such a huge issue, as you could generate some snap aggro pretty quickly on the pull, but that's gone to the wall now, as have most of the DPS classes threat-reduction talents with the re-designed 31 point talent trees.
So tanks need to relearn how to play the current content, and DPS need to learn to hold the fuck off on AoE'ing everything in sight. The one grace about the stupidly high DPS output now is that with everyone's health pools being larger (my tank gained 7,000 health overnight, whilst the mage gained a lollerific 12k health and 10k mana!) overnight, most heroic dungeon mobs are dead before they can start wading into the dps to kill everything.
So trash is fine, but boss tanking is going to be very ping-pong for a couple of months until we can start getting lots of Cataclysm level gear to up our threat levels to those that are already being put out by DPS.
Speaking of gear, and despite the 5 man horribleness, I intend to run enough dungeons this weekend to get myself kitted out in full T10 gear, as running dungeons now gives Justice Points, which have replaced both Emblems of Triumph (the old dungeon badges) and Emblems of Frost (the old raid badges). So hopefully the jump in gear will help with coping with the new threat management and play-style that that entails, that all tanks have suddenly have thrust upon them, as it's not just me, nor paladin tanks that are seeing these same threat problems; it's all tanks of all classes.
Dr Who is now immortal?
Odd one this. As every genned up Dr Who fan knows, the Dr and other Time Lords have 12 regeneration cycles before they kark it forever. It now appears that this has been quietly done away with according to the Sarah Jane Adventures in an episode featuring the Doctor.
When asked how many times he can regenerate he replies that "There's no limit".
Hmmmm. It was an interesting premise, with Matt Smith as the 11th Doctor, and the character being so close to the final regeneration. Of course the BBC weren't going to let him die after his 12th incarnation, but I would have thought a bit more effort and smarter writing would have gone into the explanation for his being able to surpass the 12th regeneration.
Lazy writing and a distinct whiff of Deus Ex Machina about it, but I'll keep watching, regardless, as I really enjoy the series as a whole, classic and new. Just a bit disappointing that such a milestone and looming death sentence has been swept under the carpet in such a nonchalant manner.
Of course that now makes him immortal and leaves the BBC free to put as many actors into the role as often as they like, as unlikely as that will be however.
4.01 – The Dawn of a new Era
4.0.1 will be released this Wednesday, and with it comes a whole lotta changes, not just for tanks & mages, but for every single class in the game...
I'll not go into the changes in any detail, as other tanking blogs have been there and done that in detail aplenty. I will however say that I am looking forward to 4.01 a lot, even if it does change (slightly) the way in which a Paladin Tank plays. In essence Blizzard's lead designer, Ghostcrawler, wanted Paladin tanks to be a bit less faceroll in their gameplay.
A laudable ideal, and for the longer term tanks (which I'm not) a bit of a blessing in that his stated ideal was to have us play a lot more dynamically and not 969 it all the time. So the rotation has gone from hitting a 9 second ability then a 6 second one, back to a 9 second ability to....
Hitting a 3 second ability (always Crusader Strike) then a 9 second ability, back to a 3 second ability etc etc. I have thus dubbed this the CSx rotation. CS followed by x where x equals Judgement (just the one now!), Avenger's Shield, Exorcism, Consecrate (now on a 30 second cool-down) etc.
So even more face-rollingly undynamic. GG Ghostcrawler!
Mind you when it was beta'd that we'd have an FCFS-like priority system similar to Ret Paladins the amount of crying and wailing and gnashing of teeth from the usual place (the official WoW forums, where else?) was loud enough to be heard from space. And yes, I know sound doesn't travel in a vacuum. It was THAT LOUD.
There have also been problems with tanks in general and their ability to hold threat, so there's been a helluva lot of tweakin' goin' on before 4.01 hits this Wednesday.
One major change/tweak is Righteous Fury. It now affects all damage done by the Paladin, and boosts its threat a whopping 200%, waaay up from the 80% boost to holy damage only as is currently on live in 3.3.5.
Of course the one huge massive change I haven't mentioned yet: Holy Power.
This is something akin to a rogue's combo points in that you have a maximum of 3 at any time, and you can use it in conjunction with several abilities in order to boost their effectiveness. The major ability for Tankadins that will benefit is Shield of the Righteous, which will see its threat and damage output boosted a hell of a lot with a stack of 3 Holy Power behind it.
Crusader Strike is of course now a baseline ability for all Paladin specs, having been formerly the domain of Ret Paladins only. This is infact our baseline ability for not only threat generation, but for generating Holy Power as well, as each time we use CS we will generate 1 charge of HP. So every 5 global cooldowns we'll be firing off a SotR with 3HP behind it.
Mind you with Cataclysm's apparent emphasis and return to vanilla Wow's tanking ethos of "Tank one mob and CC everything else" AoE tanking will be a sparsely used "skill", but we'll still have Hammer of the Righteous to replace CS in a trash-tanking capacity.
And the other bonus with the patch is that Tier 10 gear will be purchasable with the rewards from running heroic dungeons. All emblems and badges will be converted into points of various flavours so we'll all be able to get full T10 gear inside a week or two of the patch! Yay!
Tankading!
The Paladin is now 80 finally which means the process of gearing up has begun in earnest.
I had a few pieces crafted, including some top level boots, and 3 days after hitting 80 I now am ready to tank Naxx and Ulduar 25 man! Skill notwithstanding of course!
So I have run through a few heroic 5 man dungeons, and begun gathering my Emblems of Frost. I've also purchased a couple of pieces of level 245 gear via Triumph emblems.
Far faster than the mage, because everyone wants and needs a tank, DPS is dime a dozen and readily available.
So I have a few pieces of level 200 gear left to upgrade, and I'm picking up 1 piece of gear per day on average, with 232 gloves being the most recent gear I picked up last night.
So next week should see me ready to start taking in ICC. Tanking against higher geared players is hard, but it's fun. Trying to keep aggro on bosses whilst DPS are putting out between 7k and 10k (seriously, in a heroic 5 man?) is quite the challenge, but an enjoyable one at that.
So far I can hold aggro against DPS pulling 6k or so. Just about. So in about a week I should be good to go for ICC10 tanking at the least.
I've also started soloing 5 man dungeons. Last night kicked off with Burning Crusade's Hellfire Ramparts on normal. Piece of piss, and didn't even break a sweat.
Might go for the classic raids solo as well :p
Tankadin. FTW.
So my formerly Retribution Paladin, Melée, has now switched to become a full time Protection Pally, or in layman's terms: A Tank.
It's been interesting to find out that I'm not bad at tanking tbh, it's a lot of fun and certainly a completely different ball game to DPS, as this is the first time I have ever tanked on any character in any MMO. Previously it's been either melee or ranged DPS, but this is proving to be a lot of fun in comparison.
Sure you run into some complete dicks in 5 mans, particularly the DPS who either obviously haven't got a threat meter like Omen or Skada installed, or just don't give a shit. Then you have the healers with crap gear who OOM after each trash pack, which is a very stop-start experience. The odd time however you get a group that just works. DPS watch their threat levels, the healer does a great job and keeps you topped up, and everyone works together to finish the instance. Only happens about 20% of the time, but the cocks make those great groups just all the greater in comparison.
So as I said, I'm enjoying it quite a bit, and have found out I'm pretty decent at it. Definitely a challenge trying to ensure you've got the attention of all the mobs when you're picking up packs of trash and the DPS lets rip on the AOE - especially Mages and Warlocks. Blizzard and Seed of Corruption are the biggest threats respectively there. Boss tanking is a piece of piss tbh, and a lot easier than tanking packs of mobs. Although it does make life interesting for the healer 
You'd expect to get the odd bit of criticism, but there hasn't been really any tbh, and none of the groups have cottoned on to the fact that I'm only tanking less than a week! It only came about because I tried queuing as a tank whilst still in Ret spec and got a group within 5 seconds. Seriously. Tanks get groups SO damn quick, I'm lucky if I have time to reach round for my headphones behind me before the LFG pops up. DPS on the other hand, especially running lower level normal dungeons, can and do take upwards of 30 minutes.
So 5 seconds or 30 minutes? Hmmm, lemme think that one through...
So I respecced my Holy off-spec into Prot and bought some pieces of tanking gear, and really haven't looked back. It's been a blast so far, and I can't wait to get her to 80 so I can start running heroics and maybe get some MT ICC action before Cataclysm hits!
One final piece of advice I will always remember that I read somewhere: If the tank dies, it's the healer's fault. If the healer dies, it's the tank's fault. If the DPS dies, it's their own damn fault for not watching their threat!
In other news, and actually quite a while back now (6 weeks or so), Thunder finally killed Arthas (Lich King)! There's a full post over on the new Thunder Website (more about that in a sec). So after 6 weeks or so we finally managed to down him with a fairly core group that had stuck at the task each and every week until the job was done. So we now have 10 Kingslayers in the guild, of which yours truly is one, and this means we can now access heroic 10 man ICC. Mainly on Gunship at the moment, as I'd like to get at least another couple of groups through the LK fight and get some more guildies the title and achievement. Not bad going, especially as most of those weeks was either 1 night, or no nights at all. Rare was the week where we got 2 nights at him, so in all I'd say we probably had 7 nights or so at LK. So not bad going at all.
Especially so as we're still raiding at this point of both the summer (what with the World Cup and all) and of the current expansion. Traditionally Thunder don't finish off the endgame content of an expansion until the next expansion is released, more so because we tend to lose members hand over fist over the summer, as members either lose interest in the game or just want to spend time doing other things.
So I had to come up with a strategy to try and keep the guild together and active as much as possible over the summer and in the lead up to Cataclysm, and so far it appears to be working well. We're still pretty active in ICC, with only the odd 25 man ICC night having to be busted down into 10 man groups or cancelled altogether. Same for 10 man, as we're frequently getting 2 x 10 man groups out of an evening, although this week wasn't great, as it saw a cancelled 10 man group and 25 man not running at all.
But so far the strategy to keep us active and together over the summer has thus far worked pretty well, and we're still pushing progression in 10, although Blood Queen Lana'thel seems to be a bridge too far atm for 25 man for some reason. So we've accomplished some things as a guild that we've never done before - finishing off end game content while it's still current, although we likely won't kill Heroic LK until after Cataclysm hits sometime towards winter.
So a new website eh?
Yep, that's right we've split from Lightning and decided to go it alone with our own website and forums. That means we can do whatever we need to in order to provide what our members want from the guild. No more trying to go through another Guild Master for stuff we need, despite the fact that I'm the Guild Master for Thunder currently and should have had the same level of access and responsibility as our former Alliance counterparts in Lightning had.
The split is a complete one, which wasn't our choice, as all we wanted was a website and forum of our own, but Lightning decided that they wanted the split to be 100%, and have abandoned the tradition the two guilds had of inviting members of the other side on their alts into their guild. We still have a few Lightning members in Thunder on some of their alts, but they've decided that Thunder members will no longer be able to join Lightning. That's fine, it's their guild and they can do what they like.
As can we
So after a couple of things acted as the final straw, I put the proposal to the Officers and Guild Council that we move to our own website and forums, and following a lot of discussion we went ahead with the move. And I have to say I don't regret the move one little bit. We can now style and structure our forums how we want, and we have a website to be proud of - just another little duty I have to take care of now to add to the list
And yes, I'm now Guild Master of Thunder. Just a title really as we're run by a Guild Council, but what it really means is that I get more work to do. Most likely because I'm the stupid sod that decides to do the majority of the leg work and getting stuff organised and done. Like designing and creating the website, maintaining it and the forums, updating the SK lists, scheduling all our raids for the month ahead, approving half of our raids every week, dealing with recruitment applications on the forums and pretty much everything else that falls by the wayside.
It's a lot of work, but I enjoy doing it because I love the guild so much. And that's basically down to the people in it. Which is why I was so determined to keep as many of us together as I could over the summer and into Cataclysm.
When is Final not so Final after all?
I recently picked up a couple of new 360 games, to play during those times when WoW gets a bit dullish. Wet by AM2 and Final Fantasy 13 by SquEnix.
Wet's a good giggle, bit frustrating at times mind, but really fluid to play and any game that gives me a fit woman wielding a big fuck off katana is alright by me 
FF13 is not bad. Bit slow to start off with, and I'm about 5 hours in, and it's still only really getting through the introductory phase. In comparison I think Wet's intro phase lasted about 3 minutes 
It is, however, undeniably the most gorgeous looking 360 game I've played yet. The CG cut scenes at times are jaw droppingly sexy looking, and the ingame graphics are beautiful too. Long gone are the days when you'd get a lovely CG intro scene then get stuck with 75 pixels to represent your character ingame
The story as well is a bit weird for the first hour or so, until I actually read the manual and found out wtf Fal'cie and l'Cie were
But it's a nice change of pace, both from WoW and from previous FF games. The last FF I played was FFX (I have had FFXI (the mmo) sitting in a box for about 3 years and never once installed it), and as usual the whole storyline and cast are pretty much the same, but this is by far the most Sci-Fi FF game yet. It's also very much stripped back to basics which is refreshing, because FF had been getting to the point where it was stupidly and unnecessarily complex. There is no levelling up involved at all (!), but you do advance your characters' growth through a system called the Crystarium. This is a nod back to the stupid design of previous FF games (It's a 3d branching environment where you have to reach various nodes to access new powers and abilities), whereas a simple 2d text menu would have sufficed tbh.
And unlike previous FF titles, you only control 1 character in fights. The other 2 (sticking to the classic FF combat trio setup) provide support according to what way you have your team set up via templates called Paradigms. Paradigms allow you to set yourself up as a DPS, one as a tank and the other as a healer. Or all three as DPS etc. You can switch between the various templates available on the fly during combat, so if you're taking a bit of a pummelling while DPSing, you can switch out to a more defensive & healing Paradigm until you're back up to strength.
It's a great system, and ensures most fights are winnable, even if they do turn into battles of attrition at the end of the day and all you're waiting on is the enemy's health bar slowly ticking down to 0.
But overall so far a good game, with strong characters and some typically Japanese (read: really cheesy) dialogue. Well worth a punt for the £25 I got it for (Wet was £10!), and with what appears to be the winding down of raiding with Thunder for the summer as the World Cup approaches, something to fill the long hours of summer with, levelling alts aside!
Speaking of alts, I've begun a Draenei Huntard by the name of Tótty. Pretty fun so far, but even easier than the druid or Pally. It really is beginning to look like I unknowingly picked the hardest class to solo level to 80 (maybe bar a non-shadow priest) with my Mage, because with the Hunter you set your pet to attack your target(s) and stand a good bit away and attack yourself (by which I mean attack the enemy yourself, not stand there and self harm like some mentally ill Emo-space goat), while trying to not pull aggro. Reminds me of levelling a Vanilla WoW Warlock back in the day, but good fun, and comes with an awesome looking heirloom Bow
As for Arthasshole (Lich King), he's not dead yet. But we are making progress, slowly but surely. Not helped atm because we're only really getting 1 night a week on him (oo-er), but we're getting him into phase 2 regularly now, and starting to deal with Defile & Valkyr's. We'll get there though, and hopefully before 3.3.5 hits with Ruby Sanctum...
More Progression. More Responsibility
Shortly after making the last post I was appointed as the 4th member of the Thunder guild Council.
That now means I'm one of the people responsible for the day to day running of the entire guild!
Eep!
In other news, I re-started the progression team in 10 man ICC raiding, and having plugged away at Sindragosa for 2/3 nights we finally managed to get her down!
That now means we only have the Lich King left, and once he's down we can open up the heroic versions of the bosses in 10 man.
\o/
It'll be good for guild morale if we can do this and re-invigorate our members, as a lot of guilds on Kilrogg have now done it, and it would give some of us a reason to do 10 man raiding, as a lot of us gain nothing from raiding in normal difficulty - no challenge and no upgrades for gear.
Heroic mode would up the level of gear available in drops but most importantly increase the challenge provided by the first half of the raid content, as everything up to and including the fights immediately prior to Sindragosa are face-roll easy these days, especially because of the Hellscream's Warsong buff, which currently at 15% will rise to 20% in just under a week.
And finally, I was out at an awards ceremony in work last night where I was nominated for an award due to the amount of work I did in getting our new Waste Collection routes implemented and planned out. And I won! It was a surprise tbh, as there were 15 other people and teams in line for the award. It's just really nice and touching to know that the work you do day in day out is appreciated by the people you work with and for.
But getting up on stage in front of over 300 people, including Councillors and going up to meet the soon to be ex-Lord Mayor to collect the award was frigging nerve wrecking. The whole thing is a blur atm, but it was a good night overall, and the department I work in managed to collect most of the awards up for grabs!
Progression and Responsibility
Things have moved on in Thunder over the past couple of weeks.
First off, we've begun recruitment to fill the gaps left by the people who left. It's gone well so far, and we've got 5/6 new people in.
Unfortunately Shill has left Thunder, in order to server-transfer to play with some real life friends from the Isle of Man, so best of luck to you mate, hope it all pans out
And it's Childrens' Week in WoW this week, and I've already managed to polish off the achievements I hadn't picked up last year. The most frustrating one being to Capture the Flag in Eye of the Storm. A hard achievement at the best of times for a cloth wearer, but I managed to get in on a decent group and managed to pick it up! So only a handful more achievements between now and Halloween will see me get my Violet Proto Drake
Other than that there has been a promotion for me in guild, and potentially one in real life!
I've been appointed Mage CM for Thunder, which means looking after and advising the rest of the mages in the guild is now my responsibility
And IRL there's a possibility that my job may be re-graded, but which will also mean I have to re-apply for it, with the possibility that I may not get it and be out of a job!
It's a calculated risk, but one I'm willing to take, especially if it means a pay-rise of about £7,000 p/a!
Frustration and Retribution
Sigh.
Life's a pain in the arse sometimes. You toddle along, thinking everything's going grand, then all of a sudden the rug gets pulled from under your feet and you have to pick yourself back up again and get on with it.
A week ago Thunder were fine. We were making progress in 10 man on Lich King and 25 man was very slowly, but steadily progressing.
Then 2 players left, which was a huge blow. Then another one. And another 2. Then another one, and another one after that, followed by another one.
In the last 24 hours another 3 players have left, including our Mage class master, Rosey.
At this point in time, the prospects for Thunder progression in 10 man is looking dim. 25 man progression is a complete no no. And even getting a 25 man together is looking dicey. If we do it'll be a farm of the first 4 bosses every week followed by wipes and more wipes on night 2. It's very frustrating, especially as all bar 1 person left Thunder for another guild, Haribo.
In hindsight I don't blame any of them. They wanted to progress in 10 and 25 man, and that, for them, just wasn't happening with any great speed in Thunder. I can understand their situation, because I was hoping we were going to be killing the Lich King in 10 man very very soon, which would open Heroic mode up for a play about with.
More frustrating because Wednesday night's 10 man run saw me spend the last frost emblems I'll need to for major upgrades. My average item level is now well above the item level of gear in 10 man normal (average of 256 vs 251 gear in 10 man ICC). My Gearscore (bleh, I know ppl hate it, but I find it useful) is about 16 short of 5,800, which is pretty damn high. And I've started regularly hitting 8,500 DPS against the likes of Festergut, who is used these days as a DPS check.
As for the Retribution in the title?
The druid was boring in the end. Too slow in the DPS department at low levels, and shifting form constantly was a drag.
So I've rolled up a Retribution Paladin!
I've logged, so far, 33 hours on her in just under 3 weeks, and she's already sitting at level 37!
There are several things about the Paladin class that make this such an enjoyable experience so far:
Survivability: LOL! How about taking on +5/+6 mobs and not even breaking a sweat? Groups of 5/6 mobs simultaneously, and all above your level? Easy!
Downtime: Eh? What's that? Paladins have spells and abilities that not only cause damage, but replenish health and mana. Coming out of a fight, if I have less than 95% health then it's a bad thing. Very frequently I'm back at 100% health & mana before I finish looting the body.
Travel: You also get the journeyman riding skill for free as part of your training, with a free mount, plus talents that increase your on foot and mounted speed by up to 15%. Again, less downtime and more time crushing skulls!
So I'm having an obscenely fun time with her. I'll get her to 80, as the intention was always, and will be to have her as raid backup should I need to play a tank or melée DPS. We've been in need of both recently, and with the recent departures from the guild we have a spot (or two) for one. Hopefully I'll be able to get her to 80 within the next 6 weeks or so, and it won't take me long to get her ICC ready after that.
The reason for the quick levelling has everything to do as well with the Heirloom gear I've decked her out in:
Polished Breastplate of Valour
Altogether that gets me a bonus 20% experience, which soon stacks up and the levels fly by!
So having a ton of fun on the Pally, and a return to melée after playing a Regen Scrapper in City of Heroes. \o/
Bearback Mountain
And now I'm a bear! \o/
So yeah, I've started a Druid alt, to level in the times in between raids when there's naff all to do on my mage.
To be honest, it's pretty much EZMODE. You have your tauren caster form, then at level 10 you have to do this pain in the ass quest chain to get your Bear (tank) form, as you can see above. Other shapeshifting forms include Aquatic (for speedy travel in water), travel (cheetah), cat (dps) Moonkin (laser chicken DPS. Bwark!) Healing Tree (caster heals) and finally flight form, which saves on buying a flying mount tbh.
The good thing is you can collect herbs while still shapeshifted, so nipping about in flight form collecting herbs in Northrend will be a damn sight quicker than on my mage. So I'm dumping Herbalism on the mage, and switching to engineering on her, purely for the haste buffs engineering can give you. And I need more haste. If they sold it on street corners, I'd be there, gaunt faced, with a well used fiver in hand, looking for a hit.
As for the EZMODE comment - Fire off a couple of DPS casts in tauren form, and when the mob approaches instantly hit bear form and tank the mob the rest of the way to 0hp. Piece of piss. And you can self heal. Easier than a mage tbh, who can't tank whatsoever, and has to be constantly on the move kiting mobs. Which is a contradictory play style to the mechanics of playing a mage, who, for the most part, needs to be stationary to cast.
As for the guild, we've finally managed to get to the Lich King in 10 man.
Note I say get to, not kill. That's still a bit off as yet, but we're getting there!
So 25 man tonight, and we're off to Valithria Dreamwalker. Another boss I've never downed in 10 or 25. But most of my time raiding seems to be spent in progression fights - last 10 man was Putricide progression for a lot of people who'd never been to him before. I think I've maybe had 3 nights farming since I began raiding last month. I don't mind, but I am still trying to get a lot of my level 232 gear shot of, and replaced with more level 264 gear via Frost Emblems. Better gear = easier & faster progression.
Either way it's still fun!