Dinged 64

A bit busy. However was questing a bit in Terrokkar Forest and doing a lower city quest for Shattrath. Dinged 64 last night also doing some quest with a new Hunter friend. Still have 3 HellFire Peninsular quests to do, but since they require a group effort its taking much longer than I had thought it would be to get them done. Also became Honored with Cenarion Expedition by turning in over 300+ "Unidentified Plant Parts" all in one pop. Bought out the entire AH stock listed to do so for reputation points. I have some extra plants left over so will sell them back on AH for a good profit.

Have to head to work tonight so not much time to do a good post.

Is Protection Paladin Changes Ahead?

Courtesy of WoWInsider reading and doing some page linking to get the POSSIBLE lowdown of what may be ahead for my Paladin class. I found this link to a WoW EU Forum thread which does have some interesting speculations on what MAY possibly be ahead as well as some other changes in WoW patches ahead but not all entirely confirmed. Linked Here.

A Must Read Forum Post
This EU Forum thread also links to another WoW EU Forum thread by player "Youngblood" concerning changes that the Blizzard Developers may be considering in thread feedback from players for possible changes or big improvements to Paladin ability to tank effectively. Note this is a current and actively running Paladin Forum thread for commenting on if you can add to it as a Tanking Paladin or wish to. Cross my fingers. Its a long popcorn thread read and things Paladins would like to see changed for Tanking by the Developers at Blizzard. Its interesting read to me since I don't claim to know all the problems of my class and the more I'm aware of it the better. Linked Here.

Edit: Noted that the Paladin Forum thread above is a active running thread. A lot of work was put into it.

Picking Plate Armor for my Protection Paladin?

Its rather simple that only 2 classes wear plate armor gear in WoW, Warriors and Paladins. However as a Protection Paladin I'm realizing for quest rewards I'm been offered allot of plate armor, yet its just as confusing deciding which armor gear I should actually wear. I do think its when I get to 70 I have to make harder gear choices for stats. Most my gear is still green and some blue gear as rewards and I still find it hard to decide which of the plate armor gear benefits me the most for my play style. Can be tough deciding on a item with Agility & Dodge or Defense Rating vs another item with Stamina and Intelligence yet I need all of them.

I can mostly tell when when its Warriors plate armor, its not loaded with intelligence stats or mana regen or spell damage. Most my gear is still green. I've elected not to really buy any or much AH gear if I can help it (Gold Sink) and just pick up gear as quest rewards of beat it out of a mob on a loot drop since I'm going to replace it often anyway.

So I'm wondering, I know most Paladins depending on spec need lots of Stamina/Intelligence Plate Armor. As a Protection Paladin I need to absorb lots of damage, take the hard blows or dodge it with Agility if I can get it, but I also need to deal damage when I'm soloing quests. But what the hell do I do with Strength stats? I know it affects AP and help soften blows. But do I completely dump it from my armor? I know I need lots of spell damage and I pick it up in armor stats but on the other side what value is AP to me or does it have little or no value since I'm now relying more on spell damage? So which is it? Comments appreciated.

Edit: My play style is very much solo, group or tank when I have to for a Instance. But soloing is what I love to do, so that's lots of fighting mobs or many mobs at a time and having to deal damage.

Mid Summer Festival Quests

Have been a busy at the AH with making pots to clear up my inventory problems some and reduce stocking in the Herb Bank some. So spent some time in Orgrimmar at the AH a bit just crafting in demand Alchemy pots all over the spectrum, from valuable high level potions and elixirs, transmutes, to low level profitable pots that's not on the AH but in demand in my crafting experience.

Decided to go and do the Mid Summer Festival quests so spend a bit of time all over both continents finding the Festival Bonfires. Was rather fun with the Epic mount & with Crusader Aura made the trip a lot quicker when not on the Wing Rider. Made me remember how I missed some the old places. Stoped to pick up the new FP in Felwoods at Emerald Circle passing through. As a result of all the running around along the way on the Mid Summer Festival quests whenever I spotted a few select valuable herbs I just had to stop a sec a pic a few flowers. Nothing like keeping the bank stocked for profit making. Did get to complete several of the quests for some nice buff food which always help. Buff foods are always nice, much better than no buff at all.

*Found another Ret Paladin Blog: Seal of Righteousness. Something for you readers to keep a eye on. Will see how it goes.

100 Blog Entries

Just realizing I've hit 100 Blog entries since starting this blog of my Adventure Tales in WoW.

Probably order a Pizza to celebrate. Pizza goes good with playing WoW for food it seems. Anyway much thanks to all the people who stops here and read anything that's posted, its has helped alot and made it easier to put much effort into continuing.

Weekend Roundup 06/2607

After messing around with bank inventory, helped some lowbies on a run through of SKF. Took a few minutes of fun and was over.

Headed back to Shattrath City and investigated the lower level of city seeing if any quests were available also. Couldn't find much. Picked up a quest from a BE up by the Scryer library stairs to head to the Terokkar Forest. So went investigating the forest a bit just stumbling around mostly exploring. Rezz a dead Tauren right outside the gates of lower Shattrath City and got flagged for PVP immediately, then immediately was killed by the Elite Peacekeepers at the gates just as quickly?? That new to me. So i'm no longer going to rezz anyone unknown that's already dead.

Answered a call in LFG for a Tank for the Ramparts. I figure I break from quests to go tank something. A group 2 lvl 62 Warlocks, a 65 Holy Paladin, a 70 Hunter and myself as Tank. Was also my first shot at Ramparts.

Most the pulls went well, some were messy more so with all the casters bunched up together and was really tricky in deciding how to pull. So make use of Avengers Shield and the Boomerang depending on pull. Dam mobs do hit hard, a few times I was completely air bound. Having a 70 hunter in group often easily puller aggro away from me, especially when every body start blasting away as soon as they saw me prep SOR and it dropped it was observable that everyone was DPSing right then. The Holy Paladin was good on healing. No one died on the run to the boss.

At the boss killed the guy then the Dragon came down from flying around I hit him and somehow it went right pass me to the rest of group. I can't say I had aggo on it them entirely. I hit it a few times to get its attention and wasn't long at all i was DEAD. Tank died from not been healed quick enough, I could see my health but I was trusting the healer to do what he was suppose to do, not sure what happened there. When i'm soloing I always heal myself so it was a change to rely on someone else to do it.

Released on death to do the run back. No one said I had been Soul Sharded, I barely noticed. I guess the Warlocks didn't tell me. Anyway had to do the full instance run back which took a while. By them it was all over. Paladin waited to roll on a Hellreaver that looked very nice and thought be nice to have and to use. We rolled the Holy Paladin won it.....happy for him but still sucked he won it. Only thing I picked up on run was a Warhammer. Checking my quest for the items I needed of the 3 or 4 items I needed I only obtained 1 item to complete the quest. /Sucks.

Dinged 63 and now Honored with Thrallmar. Picked up the Alchemist recipe for Transmuting Skyfire Diamond & Elixir of Major Agility. Both should be nice.

Visiting SecondLife to see my Friends.

Among all the other things I had to do over the weekend that limited questing time I decided to make some time to go and visit some of my friends in SecondLife (SL). Even though I'm playing World of Warcraft, I really haven't quit playing SecondLife entirely. So it was good to pop up the client for SecondLife and log in as Aetius Epsilon, roll down my extensive friends list and off to visit friends and chat and say hello to some others.

Its amazing how much the world on the grid (SecondLife World Map) there has changed, there are literally thousands of Sims now. Some friends are not on as much but all are still there in some capacity and it was just great to catch up with old times and see how we all were doing in real life or in SecondLife. Often you can just check their profile to see what they are up to. We don't have that in WoW a personal profile page, would be nice. I consider my friends there to be great friends as SecondLife is a really social community and environment among all. So was nice to see and chat with lots of friends. Some of my friends now own their own Sim also.

A Sim is your own land bought and paid for from Linden Labs that you can do with as you please or build whatever world you want it to be. It reminds me of when I owned my own Sim "Epsilon" a mythical realm. Epsilon as a Sim is still there. When I left SecondLife on leave pretty much gave my prized possession in SL to my friend to have as her own Sim. Gave to a really great friend I knew, that was a long time friend in SL and to my good trusted friend Paeoti where she made it into a Bikers Sim (Lil Slurgis) and where she now has her Nymphetamine Boutique. She one of SL top clothing designers. I can't say I have friends like that in WoW.

My good friends Chal sanctuary there on her Sim is complete, she worked on it for months. However its nice to know she's now in the wedding business, which was great so she makes money doing it on her land in fantasy enviroment.

That friendship factor always brings me back thinking of WoW. I can't say I have friends like that in WoW, or people that I talk with about my RL or professional life or things I like to do or enjoy. In SecondLife that's apart of having friends. In WoW it a different world yes but its all about guests, leveling, getting epics and jumping in and out of guilds just so some people can get ahead, but yet its still seem empty without great friends in WoW. I have a few friend in WoW yet none like my SecondLife friends. I guess in guilds you can make some friends, but really are they really friends?

I can't say I log into WoW for friends. Mostly log in to progress my character and to level up and do the content. The reason I still play in SecondLife is almost entirely because all the friends I have known for over a year of more and we did thing together in the game or projects we worked on for some goal. I still have a real project someday I would like to do on a new Sim, and will need help of SL friends to accomplish it. Often my friends there send me a message from SL to say hey...We missed you, hows real life going with you? What are you up to? Well I'm playing WoW right now. I guess its some of the social difference of living in 2 Virtual Worlds.

Clearing up Inventory Problems.

Galo have been having lots of inventory problems since in Outland and doing lots of questing as well as bag space inventory problems as well. So instead of going to work any quest I decide to make a quest of resolving Bank & Bag Inventory issues while in Orgrimmar.

I really like to keep my inventory organized to find things, but its often a challenge to keep it that way. Bank was basically out of space and considered everything there valuable in some way. However was in need of more bag space and was debating for a while if I should spend another 25g for bag slot in the bank. I was worried the other space beyond that would cost even more also. Anyway I just decided to do a Investment in giving Galo more bank space to put his valuables as well as more space for his Herbs for professional use.

Decided to go ahead and purchase 3 new bank slots all costing 25g each (75g total) so Galo now have the maximum of seven slots all full in the bank, so lots more space also. That's a lot of gold spent for bag space alone. Also purchased 3 new 16 slot bags for about 8g each for the bank. All in all now have more bank space. After that decided to now clean up both bank & bag inventory space and sell some things I no longer needed to keep as much. For 50+ levels Galo carried a 20 slot bag for herbs. I now decided it time to put it in the bank as a bank slot for my herbs, which makes 2 herb bags for professional use in Alchemy. A regular slot 16 slot bag is much better at this point.

Removed most of the inventory Galo also had sitting in Mailbox for storage. Will have to move over rest of Inventory I have with on of my Alt Banker. Alt has herbs mostly since I use a Alt to store all my valuable herbs since I previously did not have the space in Galo's bank. If you ever run out of space you can store things in your Mailbox for 30 days as long as you don't open the mail. All in all was worth the Investment and effort. I now have lots of space for goodies now.

Edit 06/26/07: Had to work on Inventory some more as well as from my Alt Herb Bank. Inventory cleanup is completed. Galo now retains the Herb Bank for crafting his Alchemy pots of all kind. My Alt Bank I mail everything else to be sold for profit on AH usually from Outland.

Total Warchest Fund including Alt Banker is now: 1278g

Spellcasted Into the Ether

We all blog and we all blog for different reasons and choose to read the blogs we read. Some of us start out with a goal in mind of what we wish to say, a journal perhaps, a thought we wish to convey, the thought of one's mind we wish to challenge, rambling thoughts perhaps or maybe some of us are still trying to find our way into the blogosphere. Others just read for their own reasons. Mine is a personal tale of my adventure in WoW, daily happenings and the things that provoke me while on that adventure. I'm not immune to the thoughts in the Ether in this game I play.

Whether you think I'm right or wrong I may be neither
What is true is that we all have had different experiences
Therefore we are neither alike and never the same
Those experiences make us all different and in thoughts
And such we will never always see things the same
Yet to each his or her own and their valued opinions
We can all still get along been civilized men and women.

"If we all agreed on the same view's or opinions 100% of the time
then none but ONE of us would be necessary including the rest of us who
write down and cast our brave words and thoughts into the Ether".

Hang in there Tobold keep blogging away on your thoughts. You do us good service in keeping us aware, informed and mentally challenged about the game and games we all love to play even if we don't always agree on everything. We love you anyway. At least I do, I read your blog everyday. How can I stand and be immune. The flack your getting is ill deserved. Its been provoking me in my thoughts for days. Also, when its time to quit logging in how will you do it or tell your readers? I'm getting clicks on mine, so people do read here too. I guess .... I just spellcasted Avenger's Shield and casted my first Shot too.

You read there too. I know, I saw the link on your WoW blog, don't tell me your not a reader. What's provoking your thoughts?

The Ardent Defender

When I started WoW, I had no expectation I would ever end up Bloging. In trying to become a better Paladin I did something that most people never do. Simple, I randomly whispered and asked as a survey a few lvl 70 gear decked out Paladins I saw in Orgrimmar back in my my 20's how to be a better Paladin? A simple thing few people never do. Mental probing for good advice. Going to the WoW forum sucked also.

One Epic decked out Paladin with shiny gear all over said get a fast weapon and good shield and learn to AOE. Never heard of AOE or what the heck that is. However I was already specing in the protection tree so looked good. So what's AOE I asked. He said do a google search. Well that lead me on a quest for knowledge to learn how to become a better Paladin. I hated the idea of been one of those people that we all call in PUG's people that SUCK or need to LTP. Google led me to a few good blogs understanding things, which eventually led me to reading other peoples blog, learning how to Judgement and Seal Spell effectively. That was always confusing to do properly. Relearned things fast though. Today just I read a lot more good blogs.

In time I picked up Ardent Defender as a talent. Who in their right mind plays below 20% HP or why would you be there anyway? Hmm, someone real adventurous with their health! Read many people's blog of their account of their adventure or Alt adventure that lead to Galo becoming a much better player and solo player. Galo is much a self reliant player. Liking to AOE grind mobs made me love been a Paladin even more. I just like to melee mobs. Most people said of Ardent Defender this is not as effective a talent some say. However Ardent Defender have saved my life more times than I can count even though it could be better as a talent improved or work in group utility also, but that's another story. I really believe Paladins in WoW should be Tough Melee Ardent Defenders of their pier class or group mates with enough utility as a plate wearer to adequately defend a group from harm with good offensive talents and been a protector. Enter been a Tanking Paladin as true Ardent Defender.

Ardent Defender talent wise has saved Galo's life numerous times soloing in WoW. I learned allot soloing the content and storming defended places often mostly solo. It was only fitting as someone that truly loves my class to name my blog well....... "Ardent Defender".

Edit: Corrected some grammar.

WoW Attunement Changes

With all you good paladins all over covering this as a topic and not quite at lvl 70 to put my 2 common cents in about it. I think its already well covered.

/cheers to Blizzard.

Better change i'll eventually get to see more content before the next expansion.

Blogs I Read Grows

Seems like I'm reading more blogs than ever often as research and acquiring more learning from the experience of those that have gone before me in my Paladin Class. As such found another blog to add to my list of the ones I read often daily. Found it from another WoW blog I was reading that led to another blog that lead to a link to another link to another link to this blog. Journal of a Retribution Paladin. Looks like a good one. Someone that really likes playing true Ret Paladin. Hope it stays updated. Nothing like all in the family of Paladin Blogs.

Interesting Azeroth Quest - Morrowgrain Research

Profession: All, Best for Herbalism.

Have been meaning to add this to the site as a interesting and really nice quest to do as I had found it interesting when i did it back questing in Un'Goro and I'm still doing it. Herbalism (375) is one of my Professions. I really love this quest and one only a Herbalist can love even more.

Quest: Morrowgrain Research

Its available to pick up at lvl 47 or beyond. As a Blood Elf I remember picking up the quest from one of the Undead men walking around the main platform deck in Undercity. I can't remember the NPC name in UC though...Sorry. However he tells you to report to the Arch Druid in Thunder Bluff. Reporting to the Arch Druid he then ask for your help in doing some research on some soil samples in Un'Goro. This is one of the quests that actually start the Un'Goro questlines.

Anyway long story short its a nice quest to do anyone can do, but if your a Herbalist you get more out of it than anyone else. You need to get 10 Morrowgrain Herbs from growing seeds reveived in a pouch in Un'Goro soil samples you can collect all over Un'Goro or collect it as drops from Un'Goro mobs. You grow the herbs in the soil, trun in the 10 Morrowgrain in TB for +75 Reps to Bashana Runetotem on Elder Rise and you also get a bunch of free buff pots and a few unusual ones sometimes. The herbs you grow will be random ones to get the 10 Morrowgrain Herbs you grow them wherever your at you need to turn in for reps with Cenarion Circle.

You grow random valuable herbs while trying to get the Morrowgrain herbs you need. Herbalist get a increase chance to grow the Morrowgrain Herbs due to skill. Higher level of your Herbalism skill you get a increase chance to grow any higher level herbs in Azeroth. Herbs like: Sungrass, Gromsblood, Ghost Mushroom, Mountain Silversage, Dreamfoil all herbs I have grown lots of and many lower level one just from this. When you need more seeds head back to TB and buy more. I have grown over a full 20 stack of Ghost Mushroom & Gromsblood and many other herbs, that's over 30g those 2 alone on my server realm. Two very rare and dam valuable herbs. If your not a herbalist you don't know how hard that is to get those two alone.

WoW Insider Interviews Nihilum

Courtesy of WoW Insider and a great job of it too; Here is a link to a Exclusive Interview with Awake (Nihilum 2nd in command and top Paladin) of Nihilum WoW tops raiding Guild, who recently beat the entire game. Its worth reading and its informative in the tidbits of information about what it takes to beat the game, encounters as well as some class info. Its worth reading!

Linked here.

Sorting Loot Mail

Monday spend time sorting all the loot Galo been sending to the Alt banker from Outland questing. So no questing time spent. More like doing administration work. Been picking up so much stuff in Outland and from Quests thats its been building up in my Alt bankers mail box. Spent time sorting loot mail to sell on AH for profit as well as running auctioneer. I find the adon valuable however often i use my own judgement based on the market on my server. Auctioneer gives me a idea of pricing on stuff i have no usual idea of price range.

I run Auctioneer often on my Banker Alt to build data history. Log in Alt, Scan AH. Log in Galo, work on Outland. Log out Galo, Log in Alt, Scan AH. Do it enough it builds up enough of a data history of historical pricing. When I feel like it I post stuff to sell. Auctioneer nice to use.

Weekend Blues - Chill a little!

Didn't really get to do too much playing wise on Galo over the weekend.

On Friday headed over to Zangarmarsh server and created a new Alt Paladin & Hunter toon and played a bit with the good folks from WoW Insider with our guild there "It Came From The Blog". Its created as a fun Guild, laid back and just plain casual guild, that's just all about having fun with folks from WoW Insider and the readers of the site in the guild. So everyone is mostly all lowbies. The Server is low populated Realm and with the guild there at almost 300 people most all readers of the site in the span of two weeks, I'm thinking its the biggest guild it has to be on that server. It was all about having fun. Leveling Galo is fun, but its serious play.

Saturday did some other stuff of Real Life. My LINKSYS Router died and had to go buy a new one. So went to the Apple store and got me a Mac Router which is much better, which is great since all I use are Mac's for desktop and laptop. Rest of the day I slept! I'm just been too tired lately with all the late night playing of WoW and a long working day schedule. The time I put into playing WoW and leveling Galo is by no means casual play and I'm not a Guide user in how i play. I just discover the game content as i play. I'm hitting 35-40 hours or more easy and thats with working 14 hours a day. Some level of addiction there. So I'm just been really beat, so slept the rest of day to recoup. Was much needed.

Sunday as noted from the last post WoW was down for some folks, not all folks. However enough folks that it was pure Drama on the WoW forums. The problem was running for almost 2-3 days before it was addressed and it was Hot on the forums as addicted people not been able to log into WoW for their WoW fix. Anyway i had to wait for over 12 hours to access WoW while they worked on the problem. Some of you weren't affected. Somehow I discovered around my house stuff to do so that was in order. After getting a headache about not been able to access WoW I went and chill with the Tube. Later tried to log on it was fixed. Could log in, didn't feel like really playing Galo for focus play time in Outland. So went and played with my Alts to unwind a bit. Where the rest of the weekend went I have no idea.

Logging Issues in WoW - The Sky is Falling!

Been a bit busy with other things this weekend. So decided to get some game time and started having login issues trying to log in. Can't log into account, says I've used up all my funds in playing time, please purchase more. WHAT!! What the Hell!

So logged into WoW account to see what gives. Account says pending as of 06/15. Tried to change account CC and won't work. Seem no CC card change works. Says call Blizzard customer service. So call Blizzard on Customer Service number....no one home at the wheel, just recorded message. AHHH, this is frustrating. No one there to handle weekend isues.

So did only thing else i could think of....check the WoW forum. On checking it seem like everyone else is having a account and logging issue. This is big. It could be very few people or almost no one else can log into World of Warcraft today. Big issue here. The Sky is falling on WoW this weekend! Hmm. Fathers Day too. This is not a good time to be having loging issues and on the weekend or on Fathers Day either. With as much people that plays WoW this is a ROYAL PAIN to deal with.

BLIZZARD Please get this thing Fixed! Like right now.

Group Night

Continue to complete my list of HellFire Quests pretty much Solo as well as all the Quests for Falcon Watch. Most of what I have left so far seem to be group quests mostly.

The evening was quite eventfull. A druid and I grouped to complete the Blacktalon the Savage Quest. Went fine. The Druid tanked, he wanted to. I kinda DPS Blacktalon and healed the druid. Completed the quest. However hard for a Tankadin to try to be hitting a mob and try to heal at same time. Just don't work well.

Later off to another group that needed help doing the Colossal Quest for the Cenarion Expedition post in west HellFire Peninsular. Was me, 2 Warlocks, a Shaman & Hunter. Completed killing the 5 Elite giants but it was chaotic since the warlock minion was tanking the giants and the giants was somehow running around all the time toward the warlocks. Me I barely could get hits on the Elites. Wasted much mana and on consecration since giants running around also.

Followup was the Natural Remedies Quest to heal land around a giant crystal by the Elite Giants. You have to find a green circle marking on west side of crystal on the ground and use the seed given to heal the land. In the end you end up summoning a Elite 64 Giant that kinda glows red and we he had about 2 other giants also with him. These suckers knock you real hard on Knockback and sent me flying of my feet in the air a few times. Barely could see where I landed, was chaotic for a while. But we got the Elite Giants down and completed the quest. On turning quest got a nice pair of Blue boots. My 2nd piece of Blue armor so far to go with a Blue Chest piece from quest reward. Think I had enough grouping for the night. I went off to do quests solo.

Was in Thrallmar checking my mail and noticed there was 2 Elite lvl 71 Demons running around fighting the NPC's in the camp and was total chaos. Seem was lots of action happening in Thrallmar. I kinda stared around a bit not sure what was happening. So after a while decided to join the fun. There was some other people around Mages, Hunters, Shaman and such and they all was in on the action. I kinda healed who ever I though needed healing from where I was and then started buffing the NPC's with BOK and healing them best i could. Not long was before i was Out of Mana. Fun I thought for all the theater all around. Took a while but finally the demons were down. I died once from 1 demon blow for participating but came back and rejoined in. Seem unexpected theater can happen anytime in Outland.

Later headed to Paladin Trainer in Silvermoon and picked up 3 new training. Got Crusader Aura which seem to give 20% more speed and to a group. Also got 2 new rank spell, rank 10 Holy Light and rank 3 Blessing of Sacrifice. Can't remember ever using Blessing of Sacrifice before but got it anyway.

Great Site for Paladin Tankadins

I had found this site a few months ago MAINTANKADIN when it was formed to be a site for Paladin Tankadins to find or get useful information and feedback on their class other than the troll pages of the WoW forum. I've had it linked here on the site as a Tankadin Guide site as its also quite informative a forum site for Tankadins. You can get good feedback on Tankadin issues from other good playing Tankadins or Theorycrafting Paladins.

I highly recommend it if your a Tankadin to drop by there and see how usefull you find it to your needs. Link here.


Edit: Added site name.

Screenshots - Blood Knight "Galo"

Another pic for "Screenshots". Blood Knight "Galo" in his Blood Knight Tabard. Guild Tabard is in the closet.

Dinged 62

Galo continue rolling through the quests in HellFire Peninsular. As result dinged 62 barely can remember what I was doing when I did. I often take screenshots of lots of stuff to remind of of where Galo was or what was doing then. Often a lot to have to remember. Just looking at the shots I can remember what happened. Anyway Galo is now half way to 63. I haven't been to Paladin Trainer as yet so not sue what i will pick up next in spells.

Attacked several camps, blew up more cannons, killed more stuff in the area. Warlock minions are a joke to kill, they nice for a good few mana taps. Galo sometimes get out of mana so having a few mana taps on charge are nice to release in Arcane Torrent to get some mana back to maybe also recharge Blessing of Wisdom. So always good to mana tap mobs often when can. PVP for stadiums was kinda fun. However I totally suck at PVP. I'm not a player that studies PVP tactics to use and other classes what they do and know how to counter moves and spells. So I suck at it. Got ganked twice buy rogues once from stealth and other time from above a lvl 70 dropped out of sky from a flying mount and got ganked, easy to see that green tag. Just what's the dam deal with lvl 70 ganking people doing lvl 61-62 quests on flying mounts? On last run I did it with a 69 rogue and another player and found out to regain stadium all you have to do is stay close to the outside wall of stadium to regain control. Cool mission accomplished.

Fighting most the mobs in the area I fight one on one at first then after I prefer to AOE fight mobs if can and just faster to me if they more physical mobs. So often usually 2 at a time since Galo run to the other mob to draw them in. 1 vs 1 paladin is real slow.

Did a few quests as a group helping out a priest and they all went well, we also had a hunter along. Did the "Foot of the Citadel" I think thats the quest went well. Was a rush of mobs all after each other to kill a guy in charge of training Fel orc's and then to do a challenge to get to another commander guy in charge next to HellFire Citadel. I tanked the mobs the priest heal and the hunter DPS. Was lots of fun. After that we ran off did some more quests togather easily. Some I had aleady did my self solo, but the priest needed to do them, So was ok. Left after to go Solo my own quests. Some groups move so fast you barely get time to read the actual quest what its asking you to do and thus you barely know what you need to do when you get there not properly reading the quest in groups. Just another day in the Peninsular.

Outland Progression Summary So Far.

Really enjoying questing in HellFire Peninsular and been in Outland. Only thing I head back to Azeroth for is either Paladin Training, a quest leg to complete or to help out a guildie or a friend.

There is just more reason to stay in Outland really. I've also decided as a result to drop every non Outland quest I had in my Quest log to complete as much as I would have like to do those quests. Time is just better spent in Outland to me.

I may at somepoint may return to Winterspring to complete a few quest though. I'm not entirely sure if I ever will grind out those Timbermaw reps, I'm still only neutral. But as much as I like to hunt down and kill stuff for the heck of it I just might do it for the challenge to get Exaulted.

There are allot of nice quests in HellFire area and its a nice zone to me and all the quests seem to be centered in the area. Not like back in Azeroth you have to fly all over the place to just complete a quest. So nice it is. I can remember all the quests I've done, the name of things hard to remember or name of things I had to collect all Solo of course. So questing goes like this in HellFire so far:

• Head to camp over yonder and kill X number of mobs.
• Kill X number of X mobs and X number of these other other mobs for quest.
• Head over yonder and use touch and light fire to tanks. Fun!
• Head south and collect X number of pieces of material in area.
  
• Find particular person at camp and kill him or bring head.
• Collect X number of lost material for goblins.
• Kill X number of Buzzards for material.
  
• Take this item to area and attune it to HellFire Citadel. Kill mobs while attunement in progress.
• Attempt PVP control of stadium for faction control.
• Locate missing person. Report on missing person.
  
• Kill X number of mobs for blood sample.
• Take item to people in area and restore their health.
• Recover lost item from mobs in pool.
• Obtain X number of special items.
• Drop bombs on Patrols. Fun! Should be the first thing you do getting to Outland. Gear rewards are nice.
• Perform messenger duty and head to Orgrimmar to talk to Thrall. Nice reward for Quest.

Most quests go something like that. Most not very difficult to do. I find if you really read the quests and the message in it you can easily find or locate where you need to go. However the rewards are usually very nice on the Quests and the XP is outrageously nice. 10k XP seems average on quests. I also find its easy to pick up multiple quests all at same time and complete on the way to other quests. Some people are using leveling guides in Outland to level faster. Good for them. For me I like to smell the roses while I'm leveling so i do it the slower route and that's just completing the quests I have with no help from any guides. To me its fun since its my first time in Outland and it allows me to see all the world content and find hidden stuff around just poking around or wandering into a cave to investigate what mobs are in there.

So I'm all over HellFire Peninsula. The other reason is that as a Alchemist and Herbalism skilled but for Herbalism i like to collect herbs for my craft and so wondering around allows me to collect lots of herbs in the basins, on side of hill, on hilly area, in pools etc. Using Cartographer Addon it also marks the herbs for future reference on map with a nice icon. Great. However even without the Addon by my nature I like to wonder around to and from quest and find stuff and kill stuff. Also good for the XP often 1k or so or more.

Herbalism

My Herbalism skill is now 375, when I got to Outland it was already 369. So it was pretty leveled up getting here. So not long to the level cap gathering herbs. Anyway happy! My effort always picking herbs in Azeroth whenever i say them in zones pays off in leveling the skill. The way I collect herbs is simple when in zone collect everything I need. Collect it even if I not need it. Yes it takes time to stop and collect, but for me I LOVE MY CRAFTS, Alchemy & Herbalism.
I never usually sell any herbs I collect either, its all for stock and bank reserve. So other gathers are the ones driving up herb prices not real Alchs i think. Pots I make and sell or use. In HellFire area herbs you can find are"

• Dreamfoil
• Golden Sansum
• Mountain Silversage (Always on a hill side or mountain)
  
• Felweed. (Valuable)

I use Felweed to make many pots I use. I haven't sold much or made any pots to sell since been in Outland with all the herbs i have gathered. Its all stuffed in the my Herb bag, Bank, Alt#1 bank, Alt# 2 bank. I'm a herb banker. When I feel like brewing it all up I do so.

I find that even taking quests that just gives gold reward initially as only reward on followup leads to a quest that gives you a weapon or armor upgrade later. So when deciding if worth doing initially the back end of it could be a nice reward later. Also the XP is nice for the quest irregardless.

Alchemy
As said haven't made anything much to sell since in Outland. But since my DPS is seem poor and I haven't found a really nice 1H I really like I also supplement it with making and using Arcane Elixirs for +35 Spell damage when I'm grinding out kills. Adept Elixirs can be nice too but i use the other.

I've never chosen to do Alchemy because i though it was easy or cute or a money maker. Why choose Alchemy in WoW is simple. I went to school for Biochemistry. I work in Chemistry. I work in Biotech, I like Chemistry. Hence i choose Alchemy, its something i already understand well and how it work well having herbalism as a gathering skill.

Only pots I make as just continuous off income while for AH since I'm not really focus on selling anything right now is mainly 2 things.

• Underwater Breathing Elixirs (I've made these for 5 months straight and on my server I'm almost only one that makes these. Decent side income)
• StoneShield Potion - Gives 2000 Armor for 2 min. This stiff is damm nice, but most people not seen to see its value. However its a expensive pot, I know I make it and sell it. Takes allot of Stonescale Eel fish to make. Raiders love to buy these. Tanking a rough mob for a kill I'm more prone to use these for the armor value.

Armor & Weapons
I don't buy much armor on AH anymore usually. Its hard to find a good pieces and I think I get better ones just questing or I get much in quest rewards anyway or on loot drop. So I do fine with what I get from quests. A fast 1H sword still eludes me and well and a very nice shield. Those the 2 things I really invest in allot. 1H weapon, Shield, Chest & Leg piece. I may have to start my faction reputation grind to get some good ones. However I'm always replacing armor piece from quests. So i have lots in my bag so far.

Faction
I'm friendly with Thrallmar still. I just got Revered with Undercity. I have yet to pick up a quest from Shatt City. Did the library thing visiting a guy there in Shatt for the Scryers but no quest I can see. Hadn't checked lower city as yet either for any quests there.

Fel Reavers
I've got a personal grudge with Fel Reavers. They continue to stomp on me sneaking up on me when beating on other mobs. Get stomped with the flying foot. They reminds me of Devilsaurs in Un'Goro always walking around to make your life miserable. So when i get to 70, retribution will be to kill every last one of them I find anywhere and everywhere always. Been killed by Fel Reaver over 5 times now.

Bits & Bits
Caves are nice to explore in HellFire area. On one trip exploring I got like 6 greens but all 58 gear the joke was that it was all casters gear. Somehow i don't think loot is completely random. Seem i always get gear that belongs to other classes. I've never got a Plate drop period let alone one anything i could use. I did fish one up fishing one time a nice piece of plate though.


One other cave I went into as noticed a item I had to look for was there and I run into a elite 63 I think it was and for fun I said why not and attacked it. Always testing my limits of been a daring paladin. Mob had like 27K XP, well no change to win here, got him down to about 25% but lost. Well was a good effort. Its fun to at least try though dying is not. Later turns out the Elite mob I attacked is a wanted mob special quest to kill. Will get him later.


Stormed a demon camp with demons at a ruin like camp in the west of Hellfire area and all the demons. Always get good use of Exorcism spells here. Kill the blue demons first then their minion helper vanishes after. Rescued some 3 prisoners here and got lots of XP for the whole chain quest from a guy in the camp and then to kill the Elite 63 Demon roaming the area. I rocked him for the challenge.

Often I'm around mounted on my mount and watching other people kill stuff or TRY to. Its can be fun watching other classes try to kill stuff. Often its plain funny to watch. Sometimes I intervene to save their health. Often I'm helping a alliance finish a mob, I can see their health. Other times as I run and roam around, I go out of my way to bless everyone with a blessing they can use to their advantage. Too bad i can only cast then a 5 min blessing. Paladin blessings should be 15 min I think and greater blessings at 30 min. I notice I also can't cast greater blessing on other people randomly. Sucks!

So far that sums up Outland so far in HellFire Peninsular. I'm in no hurry to get to 70, its just cruising getting there but beyond been casual play. Another thing I can't say I have any friends at my level in Outland either at lest not as yet either.

Sig Images for World of Warcraft

I think these Sig Images are cool to get and nice to use as signature tags. Quite a few people have them and they provide quick glance info and stats. Got me one yesterday. They update ever 12 hrs from your WoW info. You can choose any stats you want to display as options. Looking at mine I have a long way to go in raising those stats. Hmm, needs lots more defense I would say for a Paladin. Well in time. Since its new my Kill rating seems low. It only starts to log when you first get the tag I guess. I'll make sure to kill even more stuff in Outland. Better change to get a world Epic drop from something randomly.

Here is a link to get one. Link Here.

"Blogs I Read"

I list on my blog here links to various blogs I find interesting or like because they are related to Paladin class play/adventure or interesting perspective on the Paladin class by good players that play it in World of Warcraft. Many i found through links on other people's blog. Also lists a few Hunter blogs because of interesting perspective and other points of view, however its because I have a little Hunter Alt also for R&R fun. But most blogs or links relates to Paladins/ Tankadins or those that Theorycraft on our Paladin class. I main as a Paladin that's why!

I'm a Junior class lvl Paladin, so I'm always doing research into understanding my class, things I need to know and don't, understanding paladin mechanics, spells and game play or strategy. I also play WoW much Solo due to been a mature age (35) player or in "The Dark Matter of WoW". I usually don't have the benefit of people telling me things or me asking others for help, i just like to go kill stuff for the challenge or quest. I pride myself in doing my own research as a good player so i can be a much better and effective player that you would like to PUG with if you could find one like me.

So I do lots of reading research. I also actually read on a daily basis EVERY single blog in my "Blogs I Read" list here on the blog. I also scan and read a few others, some of other classes for my learning. Its all for perspective. Reading blogs take up in total 20-40% of the total time i invest in playing WoW in total which is also more time that i actually spend asleep on a daily basis. Somehow I like to think its more than that sometimes. That time also does not include the time it takes to write a blog entry either. All in all i spend allot of time reading other people's blog that blog on their time in WoW or those that TheoryCraft on Paladin class or Forum. I often discover many new interesting things as a result or perspective also. Its made me a better player of my class, I'm more aware of things and things i didn't know.

Thanks to the many of you that blog on your WoW experience or vast knowledge pool. I'm a much better player because of it. Point is, the blogs i have listed here are not just random links on this page. I find them all to be excellent blogs for all different reasons, to read or get a good laugh, many for perspective and some for Mechanics & TheoryCrafting. On a daily basis I READ THEM ALL. /Researching.

A Random Armor Inspection

I had my alt banker sitting in AH doing a Auctioneer scan before I logged out for the night when did a random armor inspection of a Tauren Warrior. Mousing over his gear he had several eyepoping pieces. I immediately made a screenshot. Is his gear possible?

I immediately did a Armory check on this guy but since he was still logged in while i just logged out i don't think his Armory is updated. I don't think gear like that is possible unless your a Blizzard dev or something, then again WoW been acting strange lately anyway. Those some Stats!

Edit update: I couldn't resist wondering if it was real. So logged back in /whisper and asked the guy. YUP says its REAL and on multiple pieces. DAMM!

Part of Conversation

Screenshots - New UI interface & Addons

This is the new UI & Addon Interface i have been fumbling with and sucking up LOTS of my time away from leveling for over a week. In that same time Nihilum guild on a WoW EU server raided Black Temple, cleared and killed all the bosses and killed Illidan. Duh!! Right now this layout is what i settled on. I still learning to work with UI's and so i can only handle so much change at one time. Mentally its taking my mind to know where things are on the screen. My Mac Monitor is a 24" Monitor so i can see a lot of my screen at all times, so having the bottom screen darken to see the messages and the hotkeys are fine to me.


There are several hidden bars that are on the screen laying horizontal above the dark horizon that shows when i mouse over. The bar on the left changes depending on which log I'm looking at. I may need to move it, but later. I'm having a hard time figuring out how to get a combat log in the bottom right section. Initially i separated combat log from the chat log and moved it...it didn't seem to work again after. Bums. Oh well its work in progress and more work than i expected it to be. The information on the FuBar is great, however its too much dam information i can also play fine without though nice to have. It won't be perfect in a day for sure.

Too many Addon's to list so will do it later in another post. But they are mainly Ace & FuBar ones.

Edit: Photo update

Allied with Scryers

Feels like forever since I last played or quested, a week and a half it seems almost. Almost enough to get rusty playing a main that I always play. Been busy with some other work stuff and trying out addons, UI and its just time consuming to work on those or figuring out how to get then to work properly is time consuming hence the lack of progess lately. Anyway with a workable interface I fumbled Galo around a bit and to start thing out flew to Shattrath City and found Khadgar in the city center and decided to ally myself with the Scryers. Done!

Had already gotten some feed back before on a previous post on the faction dilema of both, Scryers seem more to Galo's as a Tankadin Paladin. Scryers had a Alchemy potion I like to get for profession and potion making and I have to say that was more the reason in itself for me to choose Scryer since both seen to have so similiar rewards to me. I don't spend that much though thinking of gear as others do or not as yet, but whatever. If Scryers favor me as a Tankadin then fine, i'm not gona spend too much time studying it in details. Its a game. I'll figure it all out later when i have time. Fact is i made a choice! Plus as a Blood Elf I was naturally already friendly with Scryers anyway and had a few rep points. So time to move on to other things. So as a quest its completed got over 5k rep points and not i'm hated by Aldors i guess. Oh well what else is new.

I finally dinged 61 doing some HellFire Peninsular quests. I have to say /played its been the longest i been camped out at any level, over 1 full day. Oh well, despite been sluggish in play getting used to the changed interface where things are, its time to just move forward.

Things a Main Tank Wishes Non Tanks to Know.

Much Thanks to Kinless over at his blog for spotting this, as i was reading over at his blog and found this and though its worth capturing to share so its a repost here since its a dedicated Paladin Tankadin blog here also. Thanks again Kinless for spotting this.

Posted on the World of Warcraft General forum by Ziloxus . Link Here.


This post is something of a cathartic exercise for myself. If someone gets something out of it great, if not that’s fine too. I feel like I got it out of my system before the next pug either way.

Things every warrior tank thinks every non tank should know.

My ability to generate threat over an extended time frame is inversely proportional to your ability to generate threat.

Huh? Ok here is what I mean, we will use a mage for this example but the same applies to rogues hunters, or anything else not a warrior or a bear druid.

As a fight commences both of us have two bars. We both have big full green health bars. Under my health bar is a big empty bar. Under your health bar is a big full blue bar. When you do dmg, it drains your blue bar. When I give or take dmg it fills my red bar. You have all the ammo you need at the start of a fight to make all kinds of threat which will pull all kinds of aggro. I don’t have much ammo to generate threat or take aggro, it takes me a minute.

The difference is that at the beginning of the fight, your threat making resource; mana, is full. You at this moment can activate whatever ability you want and instantly create tons of threat. Mine is empty. My resource, rage, fills up as I give and take dmg. Over the course of the fight I will get a lot to spend, so the longer the fight goes on the more and more threat I make. Problem is at the beginning of the fight I have little or no rage. It takes me time to build the threat to hold aggro off of you.

So what does this mean to you? It means that if you start every pull with your biggest most evil 10 second cast fireball, it’s gonna be real tough for me to get aggro off of you with my empty rage bar.

How to apply this advice: You need to learn to pace your dps. Whether you are a mage or a rogue or a lock whatever (except hunters who feign death whenever the cooldown is up) start off the fight with lighter lower dmg attacks. As the fight wears on rank it up to the bigger meaner stuff. You can do the same amount of dmg, but instead of front loading all of your dps (and threat) back load it.

Seriously, this is the biggest problem I see with every single DPS class in the game. Yes, I can taunt the mob off of you, but then the taunt is on cool down. What if the mob then does an aggro wipe like a knock down and it goes after you? What if it stuns me right after I taunt so I can’t build threat? You should be trying to play in such a way that you don’t ever have to see the warrior taunt outside of extenuating circumstances like aggro wipes.

When not to stun.

Ok so you have a stun button. I’m happy for you, no really I am. Stun buttons are great. You see a mob start to cast a heal or a “Level 5 Death to Tank” stun him, that’s fabulous. You see something chewing on a healer, stun them, awesome. A mob “attempts to run away in fear” go nuts stun lock them to the floor.

So why insist on stunning a mob I just pulled? Why stun the mob I just taunted? Here is what happens when you do that. When I am tanking I don’t really do dmg to make rage. My little red bar fills up when I take dmg. If you stun early in a pull I don’t get pounded on so I don’t gain threat so I don’t hold aggro, so someone like a healer or a mage is going to get the aggro. This wont usually produce a wipe, most mobs you can stun aren’t a big deal, but seriously, why make things more difficult then they need to be?

If you absolutely need a rule of thumb, wait till there are two sunders on a target before you stun it.

What to do when you get aggro.

The tank won’t always hold aggro. That’s a fact. Maybe the tank sucks, maybe he got feared, maybe he got stunned, maybe you just unleashed a cruise missile that crits the target for umpteen gazillion points before the tank had so much as an auto-attack on the mob. Whatever the reason, eventually you are going to have the mob beat on you.

If you are wearing pajamas and the mob is elite I understand the panic that sets in. You don’t want to get two shotted. I don’t want that either. So let me explain first the two things NOT to do.

Don’t nuke the thing with another cruise missile! You just pulled aggro so why go nuts trying to dps the thing to the floor before it can kill you? This isn’t a lvl 11 Defias Pillager, most likely you wont take it down in time. What you WILL do, is generate another gajillion points of threat that the tank needs to top to get it off of you. Stop hurting it. If you have a threat mitigator (cower, feint, fade, feign death) use it, if not. Just hold still for a sec. It wont be for very long, soon enough you will be sticking it full of sharp metal things or setting the mob on fire again. Just don’t make it harder for the tank to get the thing off of you.

Don’t run for the hills! I am a bit baffled as to where this gut reaction comes from. When you were lvl 40 did you outrun a bear or something? I don’t think you did. Do you think if you run far enough you will drop aggro? In an instance an elite mob will not drop aggro until you are dead or until you have left the instance. Running won’t keep the mob from chewing on your keester the whole time you run around, really it won’t. The mob runs the exact same speed you do. Guess who else runs the exact same speed you do. That’s right, me!

So if train A leaves Pheonix at 5:10 a.m. Pacific time headed east at 45 miles per hour, and Train B leaves San Diego at 5:10 a.m. Pacific time headed east at 45 miles per hour, at what point does train B catch up to Train A? That’s right! Never! So when train A dies in a monstrous fireball or twisted metal and diesel fuel, it is probably even going to blame train B for not saving it.

You need to run TOWARD the tank, at the very least hold still.

Ok Pally OT, bear OT or other Warr OT, when should you taunt off of me?

Um, really close to never. Why on earth are you taunting off of me? Are you trying to prove a point? Are you trying to demonstrate that you can tank as well as me? Great for you! You have tank buttons too. Now I have to burn my taunt to pull the mob back off of you so you don’t die, or so the healer doesn’t waste mana on you. Now my taunt is in cool down if I need it.

The only time you should taunt off the main tank is if I ask you to. When will that happen? Only if the healer dies and I need to bandage, or if it’s a fight that requires a tank rotation. That’s it.

Now of course there are times when things are confusing, something is chewing on the healer and you are trying to save the day and I taunt and then you do too. That’s fine, you did the right thing in saving the healer, don’t beat yourself up about it, you don’t need to apologize to me for it either. I saw what happened, I’m 4% smarter than I look.

When should you bubble me?

I hope this is a priest asking this, I really don’t need divine intervention thanks. If you bubble me I don’t get threat from taking damage. Don’t bubble me before a pull. Don’t bubble me early in a pull. If my bar is mostly red, sure if you think I need the extra mitigation and there isn’t time for a real heal, bubble me.

Don’t BOP me please, it’s a fantastic way to kill healers.

The pull.

Sometimes we aren’t going to fight the mob out where it is standing. Some times I will even shoot the mob and then duck behind a corner. This is not the universal “unleash your mana wielding ranged casting might” signal. What probably happened is I saw a little blue bar under the mob out there; I want him to come to me so I shot him, then broke line of sight. If you shoot him, guess what, he will stand right where he is and shoot back. Then I have to go out there and risk pulling the whole room to get him off of you unless you figure out how to duck behind corners too, that is assuming that the Moonkin and the Hunter standing next to you didn’t just take your cue and unload their blue wad all over the mob you just launched WWIII on.

The sheep

We pull 3 mobs on accident. You can sheep or seduce or scattershot or whatever. That’s a fabulous idea. Don’t sheep the thing I am beating on! You know what will happen? It will break and I will already have another move queued up behind the move that broke the sheep which will break the next sheep you are trying to do since you didn’t change targets. You might not be familiar with the “F” key. Click me, then click “F”, now you are targeted on my target, so target something else, anything else and sheep that.

Multi mob pull

Ok so we just got more than we can handle and I am tanking 3 mobs with no offtank. Attack my target would you? I only have so much rage to spread around. If you start shooting something that I am not concentrating on your going to pull aggro, then I have to decide whether I let you die, or whether I go pull it off of you and risk letting the rest of the party die while they keep attacking the thing I was attacking. The “F” key works great for this too.

The off tanks target

Just because I am the main tank does not mean that my target is the most important target to kill. In fact, often it is the opposite. I am the main tank because I take the best beating. The Hunters wind serpent that is tanking that other orc over there wont hold up as well as me. His target needs to die first. My target should be the last one to die. Those other tanks aren’t built to take the abuse I do, help them out. I will be ok, I have all kinds of squishies watching my back. Seriously, go fight the other guy’s target.

Post by Ziloxus.

• As a Paladin, we have the Blue Mana bar or Blue Rage Bar. Thus been opposite to Warrior we can front load our massive offensive threat to gain aggro immediately with limitations to the size of that Blue bar and regaining mana spent. As stated greatly above Warriors have to build it up over time.
  

• What non tanks need to heed to is just who is tanking a Warrior or a Paladin. Be aware of the mechanics of how either tanks need to build that threat on mob so they (Non Tanks) don't get the aggro by giving the TANKS the time to build the threat before they themselves unload their massive DPS.

*Anything any other good paladins can add in comments would be nice.

New Addon's & UI's

Galo has been back in Outland and just resting up since getting the new Epic Mount. So haven't been up to much. I'm in no hurry to get to 70 other than daily progression. However been a bit preoccupied at looking at some new Addon's or UI mods usefull for Outland.

Been discovering the world of Addons, mods, UI's and so been looking around at some sites and some Addons that could and would be use full and found a few. So mostly been getting acquainted with installing and loading UI and see how they look, work and such and messing around. So taking awhile and a bit getting used to.