80 Prot Paladin Talent Build

Now that Diamon (my Paladin) is 80 and patch 3.3.3 is live it is time to update the Protection Paladin talent build. Once again I’ve read through forums, and the base build is pretty steady, but there are a ton of variations for a Tank build.

Here is a Tank build I’m planning to use for Diamon. Like most builds it uses the Retribution talent tree for additional powers and that makes threat building easier.

Now no build is good without some explanation, so here goes:

1. I’ve seen builds that have more points in Crusade and Seal of Command. This seems to me to be a build for when you’re never out of mana, and also looking for maximum threat. That is not my case as a new Paladin tank, so I’ve taken some points out of these areas.
2. I did however put a point in Conviction, as a 1% crit chance is always a great thing.
3. If I was being totally selfless as a new 80 tank, I would have taken at least some points in Divinity in the Prot tree, as it increases the healing that the Paladin receives. But meh, most runs have very over-geared toons, so and I’d rather match the pace of the run to the gear and spec of the characters than try to stay alive the most.
4. On the flip side of that is choosing a Glyph for reduced cooldown on Lay of Hands. I can’t think of a handier ability for a protection paladin. The self heal is huge, and having that power more often is a godsend.
5. Some builds will only have 1 rank of Spiritual Attunement, but I want and need both points.
6. An alternate could also be to put some points into the improved Seal of Vengeance in the Holy tree, but I rate Crusade’s 2% to all and 4% to Undead as a better bonus.

Much of what is good in Tankadins is available for easy reading at MainTankadin.failsafedesign.com.

This post is an update to my previous post for a level 70 spec from October 2008.

Rise of the Paladin, ding 80!

After a weekend of burning through all the rested xp, a stack of instances, and more kills that I can poke a stick at; my Paladin is now level 80!

/happydance /rawr

Diamon (armory link)* was my first Warcraft character, rolled as I like the Paladin class from DnD, and has always been a character that resonates with me. I leveled primarily as a tank, with a bad dps set for solo questing, and honestly I think the tanking is far more fun.

Upon hitting 80 I spent a stack of gold on the skill-ups, equipped a few upgrades that I had in the bank waiting, was gifted a set of ilevel 200 Shoulders (thanks Rakk), bought a few upgrades from the AH too.

Now wearing a mix of blues and purples, and looks ready to strike into the basic Heroics. Bring it on.

In the coming weeks I’ll probably add to my list of daily pugs, all the stories of being an under geared dps and tank, and no doubt will have some utterly stunning stories of ineptitude (like x2 DKs in a CoS run who could not do more that 500-700 dps).  I suppose I should dps a run and see if I can do any better. 🙂

Grats also to Rakk who’s shammy levels with me and also ding’ed last night.

*Armory was down when I posted, but honestly – he is 80.

Scammers are stupid, but getting smarter.

Another of those emails to open our wow accounts received today, but this one was a direct copy of the Blizzard real email. I’m not re-posting the screen as its a pretty standard set of text with little value.

Account fishing scams are poor form, but par for the course now. Using an exact duplicate of the Blizzard change of account preferences is a much better approach for the hackers, as Gmail won’t filter it automatically and it raises the question in your mind if somebody else has opened your account. It could also be seen as legit if you did just change something on your account. So kudos you filthy hackers for evolving from pond scum.

The old advice still stands: Never click a link in an email.

Seeing the email quality rise is to be legible  instead of the janglish junk that normally is spammed is perhaps a sign that spam filters are actually helping us. I know that I couldn’t live without one. I’m more worried now about somebody getting my gmail password than my wow account.

Another AH bargin?

More bargins ffound: cheap-ish Armour kits and some cloth to resell, but a set of Revenant’s Treads for 30g looks good.

I’ll go out on a limb here and say that any spell caster gear for Mail and Plate wearers seems very cheap. So cheap in fact that you’d be mad not to snaffle the when it appears at these prices – if you’d use them.

Is all spellpower mail and plate just diry cheap?

In this case I think it was probably made to level a skill, but for 30g – its a great price. The mats alone are worth 60g.

Epic AH drops

Had a quiet 30 minutes last night of digging through the AH and found some real bargains.

9g for a level 40 epic, Bargin!

I found a Signet of the Accord (ilevel 200 epic Tanking ring) for around 120g, a Durable Nerubhide Cape ( ilevel 200 epic Tanking Cloak) for just over 200g, both which will go to my Paladin when he hits 80. Also found a set of Boots of Avoidance, which are a groovy set of Tanking boots for my lowbie Warrior Tank for a staggering 9g.

So a nice night for buyers of Tank gear on the AH. It is funny to consider that the enchants for some of these items will probably cost 30-40% of the buy price of the item. I’ve also got another really swanky cloak and boots with bids, but I really doubt that I’ll win given how often the AJ is farmed by folks.

I don’t use the AH for cash generation most days, more to periodically look for great deals on gear I might want. Was stoked to get that gear last night for my Paladin.

Are 226 legs worth 200g, or did I just overspend?

Also made out ok just after that with a little purchase that I’ll try to resell, a Leggings of the Stoneweaver, which is 226 ilevel Shaman gear, for 200g.

I think this AH scanning thing could have some merit, and although I do most of my searches “by hand” and pick bargains – this could put me a lot closer to grabbing some silly gear for alts.

Perhaps work toward a 6th toon with epic flying.

What would you start over as?

If you had the chance to start all over again in WoW, what would you play?

Now I don’t know why on earth somebody would choose to restart from scratch, as I think there is always a strength in using your old toons. Starting a level 1 Alt is very different from starting on a new server clean. I tried this once, and did not last long until I transferred a higher level toon over to make the process easier.

TLDR – I’m too lazy to start over without a high level toon to grandfather gear and bags.

Would you switch to a new class or race at level 80?

I would only consider switching to something else if I had decided to switch Factions, then I’d grab an Orc – as I see it as the perfect Unholy Death Knight race / class combo. But I like my Draenei Death Knight, it has the mass which matches a Death Knight. Tauren would be another OK choice.

Maybe a Worgen in the expansion.

And also what if your account was destroyed and you needed to start from level 1? What and why choice of class, race, and faction?

I’d probably not play for a long time, if at all. Starting from scratch would be such an ending, that I don’t think it would work. Unless I was supported by a few high level mates.

Given a bit of time to get past the grief; my characters would be x2 bank toons, a DK main, and a Hunter, Paladin, or Warlock as alts. Got to have something to do when the rested runs out.

And most of all what would you plan to do with it? Raid, PvP or just hang out in Dalaran?

I’d keep casually raiding and running 5 mans. I only like PvP in bursts, and can’t take the RP side seriously. If  real life permitted I’d raid seriously, 3 times a week.

And yes, I’d be one of those guys who are also hanging about in Dalaran, looking for a PuG or some such to entertain me.

Proudly pinched from the Blog Azeroth Shared Topics

Single Abstract Noun

A noob hunter in SAN gets a level

Joined the folks in Single Abstract Noun, on the US version, and by golly they are a chatty and fun group of folks. Both the EU and US variants are present on Argent Dawn, Horde for the EU folks, and Alliance for the US guys.

If you are a blogger, or want to play with no strict requirements, or want to talk to bloggers, then come join. My little toon (named Corrian, a level 6 Hunter) is for comic value, and I’ll keep dropping in from time to time.

A huge number of bloggers have already signed-up.

Info for EU players, US players, and groovy google search for a stack of activity.

Happy hunting and feasting.

Insane alt-a-holic rules

There are some things I’ve been doing with Alts that will drive me insane eventually.

Having one DK character active was a tad dull, so I added a Priest as another. Then I found that my second choice of toon was interesting for a short time, but not fun overall, so I added a Druid instead. Then decided to add a lowbie alt Hunter to be silly on; and then was impressed by a Tank I saw and added my old Pally.

But having seen a DK, Druid, and Pally tank, I felt like I was missing out on having a Warrior, so pondering starting a Warrior. But my Shaman also has ok gear as heirlooms, and the Mage will get some play soon.

So Death Knight, + Priest, + Druid, +Paladin, + Hunter, + Warlock, + pondering a Warrior or Shaman, + Mage afterward…

Yes, I’m an Alt-a-holic again. So now I need a rule set for what to play.

Positive Random Dungeon Stories

Need or Greed...Blizzard says no loot for you!

A shared topic via the TNB folks was about Positive Random Dungeon Stories. Now don’t get me wrong, I do have a lot “standard” pug stories where it works out OK; and sometimes a good event.

Often though the memorable is a bad event rather than a good event. Human nature to remember that way.”

So here goes – some good things that have happened…

It’s all Hunter Loot.

Did a quick SM run on my mid 30s Hunter and cleaned up on loot random rolls. We all rolled Greed on everything, but somehow I walked away with almost everything; in the order of 6 of the 10 random drops went to me.

I just had to laugh and keep rolling greed.

UberHeals in leveling run.

A GunDrak run was recently made a total laugh for my 74 Tankadin, where an 80 Paladin healer allowed us to zerg through almost everything. Doing 3 pack pulls as a level 74 Tank is too much fun to have. No idea why that happened in terms of “random dungeon”, but I can’t say I’m unhappy.

Quick solid run, plenty of polite and fun chatter in /party, and only the Warlock dps in the group died; which is par for the course for Warlocks.

Arkham the Warlock is back!

Along with my Tankadin, I’m also dusting off my old Warlock to see what he can do – Arkham is back with destruction on his mind. At 72 doing the random group dungeon run is just a blast (or is that a Conflagration?).

I’ve spec’ed deep into Destruction, hardly need the pet, and just nuke everything. I don’t even care about dying, as repairs are just so damn cheap.

Bear druid is Tank -Rawr

Lastly my Druid now has a solid 5 man tank set that can do almost everything. Halls of Stone is cake, I actually like doing packs of mobs, and even the painful tunnel in PoS is not the bitch it can be as a DK tank. Having a huge HP total helps too.

Cooldowns? Nope, just use Swipe.

Mob packs? Easy, just use AoE taunt and Swipe.

DPS with Threat fever? Taunt, maul, etc. Kids stuff.

Happy randoms to all, may your loot drop and repairs be cheap.

Best use of Frost Emblems for casual players?

If you are a casual, or leveling and gearing alts – then you’re probably not going to have 400 Emblems of Frost to purchase 264+ ilevel items for all gear locations. Instead you’ll probably run the heroic daily, get 30-60 badges, and look at what is your best purchase.

It begs the question of what is the best use of Frost Emblems for casual players?

My list in order of priority would be:

1. One Trinket. Without question. These are often the most difficult to get, and will last you the longest. I’d say that get your first trinket, and then maybe another slot, rather than buying two trinkets. However if you are a dual-role class, maybe get a trinket for each spec if you’ll use them.
2. Belts & Cloaks. They are cheaper than the rest, and often harder slots to upgrade than the Feet, Hand, Chest, Shoulders, and Head.
3. Then your Class Tier gear.

Happy killing.

Guest on TNB Roundtable

Was recently invited to my first Roundtable on TNB – it was wonderful wonderful fun. Topic: Whatever!

The guests were of a particularly high caliber, and folks who I have read for a while (and I was chuffed to be asked):

• Tristan from The Elitist Podcast
• TyphoonAndrew from Eye of the Storm (me)
• Daewin from the The Hunting Lodge Podcast
• Stop from The Stoppable Force
• Kim from World of Warcraft Wanderings

Follow us all on Twitter: @stoppableforce @ladygypsy @theelitists @typhoonandrew and @daewin

We covered the following topics:

• Masteries in Cataclysm, what are they?
  
• Progressive “nerfication” of Raids (the buff that is being rolled out monthly)
• The Purpose of a Guilds
• The Perfect Random Dungeon group
• Are Addons a Critical Tool or Crutch

Go download and listen, it was a blast!

WoW.com wants Monks too

I want Monks in the game, as I’ve said before. And now wow.com backs me up.

Expect a long rant about this soon, and yes I know I have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting this anytime soon.

A melee healer and dps is not game breaking. It will mean a new set of dps gear needed, something like cloth with agility on it, much like the rogue and cat gear now.

For healing maybe they’d need to me mana users, but with all the new stat changes being talked about an int and spirit based healer cloth gear is not a stretch at all.

C’mon Blizzard – Monk us.

More mount madness

The Instance #179 & #180 talks about new mounts, and by all things holy I think we can go way past riding Hoverboards and Wasps, we can reference the fun ideas in a shared topic on Blog Azeroth, which started it up for me a while back in August 2008.

We might soon see submarines, and all sorts of oceanic mounts. I expect I’ll never see the phoenix or another ultra-low-drop-rate mount, but some of the stuff the Instance crew talk about in #179, and touch on in #180 is interesting.

Just saying its a great thing to add in an expansion, gives breadth of fun to everyone, and has no balance issues to speak of really. And I kind of support a Jetpack for Engineers; more so it can explode or go out of control.

What is Mastery?

Mastery is a hot topic all over the wow blogs and websites at the moment. After reading a series of threads, and a lot of player conjecture – here is my quick definition:

Mastery: will be a passive increase to your current form/stance/spec’s role. Do not expect it to define the specs, expect it to enhance it. It will be present on level 81+ gear, will change when your role does, and is still very much being worked out.

TL;DR = It’s a passive buff, subject to change; so worry about it 1-2 weeks after Cataclysm expansion is released, when the Theory-crafters have sussed it.

Threads:

• http://thefluiddruid.wordpress.com/2010/03/09/ferals-and-mastery-cataclysm/
• http://www.wow.com/2010/03/09/updates-and-clarifications-on-the-mastery-system/
• http://shyatwow.blogspot.com/2010/03/blizzard-at-loss-about-what-to-do-with.html

The wow.com one contains back links to all their class and spec related posts, and all sorts of goodies which are also moot at the moment.

How to Tank Heroic runs?

As a rambling short-attention-span reader, sometimes great articles pop out of nowhere. One such from mid Feb is a good article by Tanking notes, on the value of Crit Immunity. Go read if you’re interested in a discussion on getting Critical Hits while Tanking.

However if you’re newer to Tanking, and theory-crafting is a bit aberrant then perhaps a simpler approach is better. As such I asked my self…

How should tanks actually execute a Heroic run?

Here is a series of pointers, which make sense to me, and following afterward a rambling stream of thoughts for how a heroic run should be done. Written for new tanks, by somebody who remembers what it was like to be new.

1. Be realistic about how ready you are to tank. Really. You can expect some pretty insane comments if you make mistakes, and if you’re not the type that can take it without flipping out; don’t tank. Might sound odd as the first point in a how to tank post, but it needs to be said.
2. Talk to the team when you enter, and let them know anything special in advance.
   1. Start with a hello.
   2. Warn them, or ask questions, maybe even set loot rules (need Orbs).
   3. ie. I’m pondering a macro that says how I’m a new Bear tank, so please give me a few extra seconds on threat. That might cause a few folks to leave, but you didn’t want that player in the group then anyway, and its better to say up front.
3. Remember you are a team – don’t just bash orders out on the keyboard.
4. Check if everyone is ready before the pulls..especially the boss pulls.
   1. if your healer is sitting down, they are not ready.
   2. if the healer has less than 50% mana they might not be ready.
   3. if the Shaman does not have totems down, they might not be ready.
   4. check your own big cool-down abilities before a boss pull.
5. Always enter the instance in the gear that meets the basic caps for your class, and stacks Health. In a heroic a large health pool is often better than a lot of avoidance, and in the situations where this is not true the make-up and skill of the team is a far greater issue.
6. Consider threat generation to be your next biggest target. You’ll need to have your taunts ready, and have plenty of threat on everything. My experience is that highly geared and skilled players will try to go “all out”, and end up ignoring threat.
7. Configure your trinkets, old-tank gear, and other items so that you have a lot of sub-sets for Tanking.
   1. HP set.
   2. Threat set, even if that threat set means you have a much lower hp pool. Better that the healer with aweseom gear is kept busy healing you, than busy trying to heal 3 people.
   3. Avoidance set.
   4. Stun resist set (maybe, I just chucked this in, but it seems like a handy idea).
   5. Try to consider the boss fight for which set to use.
8. Don’t be afraid to pause, but generally keep the team moving forward.

How to choose gear upgrades?

Like many players, I’m always hunting for ways to play warcraft smarter, rather than just more often. A decreased amount of free time means that doing the right runs, to get the right gear is a priority. And as I’m gearing many toons at once I thought I’d share a little wowhead-fu, on how I decide where to run.

WoWHead has a ton of stuff that is exposed in the filters for gear, and when combined with Stat Weightings, this is easy mode for finding what instances to concentrate on, and where to spend your Emblems of Whatever.

Try this search as an example of Paladin Tank gear:

http://www.wowhead.com/?items&filter=qu=3:4;minle=213;ub=2;cr=105:106:118:118:118;crs=-2323:-2323:47241:45624:40753;crv=0:0:0:0:0;ma=1;gb=1;gm=3;wt=22:21:117:45:42:46:20:41:44:43;wtv=100:60:59:55:45:30:16:8:7:6

What does this little link do:

• Shows all gear purchasable with Emblems of Triumph or below,
• And also from any 5 man instance,
• Which is ilevel 213 or greater,
• Sorted by gear location,
• Which a Paladin can use,
• Sorted in priority of what a Protection (tank) spec paladin might be after.

Note: I’ve excluded the Frost Emblems, as they are slow to get unless you’re a regular raider, and I’m aiming for fast upgrades I can use as Emblems of Frost are gathered over time.

Now that I have a baseline search, there are tweaks to change that after the break; bit also consider these as shortcuts to gear:

• Drops from the new 5 mans, 226 to 232, by role and slot.
• Items from all Emblems.

“Help! I am trapped within this tree! I require aid!”

Go read the some spoilers from wow.com’s article on the new instance coming soon in the Dragon Shrine, a few small spoilers in there but nothing event changing. Kind of flavour spoilers.

“Help! I am trapped within this tree! I require aid!” – Somebody in the script department was not thinking; this is a dragon? A powerful creature? Beast of legend? No, not really very impressive.

I bet at least 25 blog posts, and a few podcasts will have this as their names.

Teksloot: great loot addon for 5 mans

A great addon created by Tekkub, called Teksloot – highly suited to 5 mans, but useful in any run.

The key feature: this addon will show you who has rolled Need, Greed, DE, or Pass, so you can watch items easier at the end of the run.

Q. But why is this great for 5 mans?

A. So I can see who is rolling need on the Frozen Orbs, and other stuff. No more folks rolling need and you not realising till later.

Also nice is that it makes the loot item frames a ton smaller, so they don’t take up the full screen. Great for when folks loot mid battle, and then your screen is covered in loot windows. In other news, I’m pretty much gong to announce at the start of the run that we’re rolling need on Orbs. Makes this easier too.