For The Paladin

Someone in WoW has managed to hit 1 MILLION gold in a total of 6 months. Honestly, I dont think in the five years that I’ve been playing this game, I’ve amassed even close to that much. Here are his personal stats as to how he did this.

* Averaged 46,080g per week in profit
* 1500+ active auctions at any one time
* Largest single day gain: 51,781g
* Largest single day loss: 18,254g
* Single Iceblade Arrow sales: 16,374g
* Rare and epic spellthread profit: 81,313g
* Gold earned from GDKPs: 28,312g
* Gold spent at GDKPs: 71,210g
* Vendor pets profit: 19,448g
* Largest profit from a single item: Ring of Rotting Sinew 9,512g
* Largest % profit from item: Plans : Titanium Razorplate 3,308%, 80g to 2,646g
* Most expensive item purchased: Deathbringer’s Will 17,000g
* Most expensive item sold: Mechano-hog 15,210g
* Gold lost to AH 5% fee: 64,712g

That is just a silly amount of gold to have. My question to you guys is, what is the most you’ve ever earned? What item did you sell?

I can honestly say that when I first stepped up into Blackwing Lair, I was pretty knowledgeable of Molten Core, taking down bosses such as Magmadar in my sleep.  That said, I felt like I was very knowledgeable about raiding in WoW.

I was wrong.   Very, very wrong.

Razorgore was not only the first boss, but the first MOB in Blackwing Lair, and even his mechanics were something I’ve never seen before in the game.

But i’m not here to write about the mechanics of Razorgore…then the title wouldn’t make sense.

Vaelastrasz had one of the most fun mechanics I’ve ever played in raiding.  He had a spell called Burning Adrenaline which would increase your damage by 100%, your attack speed by 100%, and your spells became instant cast.  How awesome is that?  Imagine being a pure DPS class and you’ve been hit with Burning Adrenaline, you become so overpowered you’d think that it was unfair to even put this spell in the game!

….I mean, there’s also that whole “lose 5% of your max health every second” bit, but it’s still pretty cool.

The craziest part about this spell was that he not only cast it on a random mana users throughout the fight, but also on the current tank every 45 seconds.  That meant that tanks had to have a rotation on when they became Main Tank while the other slowly withered away.   For those who weren’t tanking but had mana to spare, they needed to get to a safe zone to be at, because upon death, they will explode and do 4,376 to 5,624 AoE blast damage.  But if you were being healed, you should have enough health to get a few good nukes in.   Of course, rogues never got hit with this spell (and they damn sure don’t need it).

On top of this intriguing little spell is another ridiculous ability,Essence of the Red.

This debuff is cast on the raid at the beginning of the encounter and lasts for three minutes. Restores 500 Mana per second to mana users. Restores 50 Energy per second to Rogues and Cat Form Druids. Generates 20 Rage per second for Warriors and Bear Form Druids.

It essentially means players have infinite mana/rage/energy for the fight. Circle of Healing. Being a holy paladin at the time, it was time to go crazy with Holy Light and Flash of Light. Add Holy Shock to the mix and you’re pretty much all set to go in terms of healing.

Oh, you should also keep Fire Resistance Aura on, because of Vael’s passive Fire Nova spell.

Killing Vael will grant you access to your Tier 2 belt as well as these items:

Pendant of the Fallen Dragon
Dragonfang Blade
Red Dragonscale Protector

Personally, I had both the Pendant and the Shield back in Vanilla WoW. Both were awesome items for a Holy Paladin.

Keep Tuning in for more Raiding to the Past!

Hey guys, I’ve been really busy with finals and such and haven’t gotten around to playing/blogging for a while, but with the semester over I will be back to my normal routine. Sorry for the lack of posts this week.

Ghostcrawler (WoW’s Lead System’s Designer) recently talked about Cataclysm’s overall leveling improvements:

1. The gain is every level. You don’t have to reach certain milestones for your Shadow Bolt damage to increase. One of the scaling problems we have currently is that any spell without a level 80 rank starts to fall behind. Imagine Shadow Bolt just has 85 (free and automatic) ranks.

2. We changed the level at which you get abilities, in some cases dramatically. Currently, you get showered with abilities at low level, many of which aren’t even useful when soloing. By sliding these around we have every class to where you get an ability about every odd level. There are still some dry spells for some classes, but then you have talents and other things that fill in some blanks.

3. Related, the spell book tells you at what level you will get future abilities so you can plan accordingly. In addition, when you ding, the UI tells you not only about newly available spells, but also systems and mechanics not tied to your class trainer, such as the ability to train riding, dual spec or use Dungeon Finder. It’s pretty sweet. Our UI team is kicking some major booty for Cataclysm. Source

Personally, I’ve given up on leveling characters for a while. I thought that I was going to be able to level my warlock (who’s 68 at the moment) before the summer came around, but for me it’s getting way too boring. Hopefully these improvements will at the very least create a new experience when it comes to leveling in World of Warcraft.

Recently, I had gotten an invite from a RL friend to raid in a 10-man Trial of the Crusader as a tank. The problem was that because I was the Main Tank (and because I was given Raid Leader status to find another 6 people to raid alongside us), I was given the privilege of being the Raid Leader.

Now let’s get one thing straight. I can take orders no problem. I can also play my class pretty well and know all of the fights for all raid bosses up to Ice Crown Citadel. But ask me to lead a raid to downing a boss? You’re better off finding someone else to fill that position. Which leads me to this post: What does it take to be a good Raid Leader?

Communication

Obviously, communication is key. The ability to communicate with your raid and to make sure that not only they can understand you, but that you can understand them. All of the successful raids I’ve been in have had a Raid Leader who was constantly talking on Ventrilo, making sure that everyone was ready to go before each boss battle, tossing out bits of information here and there throughout the fight, and always keeping our spirits high when things weren’t looking so good. So make sure that if you plan on leading a raid, having good people skills is a major skill to have.

Strategy

How are you supposed to kill a boss without knowing what the boss does? Read up of course! While it’s important for the Raid Leader to know the strategies, it’s also important for the raid to read up on them too. In the case of “OH NOEZ I FORGOT TO READ THE STRATZ!” at least your Raid Leader can let you in on the information that your class is required to know in order to defeat the boss. I will admit that at times I would be thrown into a raid where I had no idea what was about to happen, but the Raid Leader was always there to show me who I was healing/where I was standing/what I was doing when a certain event happens.

Preparation

What do I mean by preparation exactly? You should be well prepared in game as well as out of game. In game, being stocked on all the necessary pots/buffs/enchantments is key not only in maximizing your DPS/Healing, but it also gives you that added bonus for your characters when their gear is lacking (but if you’ve ever raided before, you should already know that). Out of game, it helps that when a Raid Leader has set up a few hours to raid on a certain day, they are around for those hours uninterrupted. Raiding can be serious business when it has to be (just look at the top 10 raiding guilds in the world, do you think they got there by casually downing bosses?), and it takes a certain kind of focus to accomplish something as epic as a world-first kill. Rest assured, this post isn’t exactly about that, but even for raiding on a casual scale you need to focus and you need to be prepared to sit through wipes, especially if your raid is a PUG.

Anyone else have any good key components to being a good Raid Leader? Leave a comment or shoot me an email!

~Baros

A lot of times when I talk about WoW, one of my major topics of conversation is what it was like to play the game when it originally came out. It is with that thought that I’d like to present what (hopefully) will become a weekly ritual to forthepaladin: Raiding to the Past. In it, I will discuss raid bosses from raids past and discuss abilities, strategies, and other stories. Enjoy!

Magmadar

Attacks and Abilities (Thanks to WoWWiki.com)

* Magma Spit

Deals 93-107 Fire damage and an additional 75 Fire damage every 3 seconds for 30 seconds. Stacks up to 3 times.
School: Fire
Range: ?? yards

* Lava Breath

Inflicts 1157 to 1343 Fire damage to enemies in front of the caster.
School: Fire
Radius: 35 yards

* Panic

Panics nearby enemies, causing them to flee in fear for 8 sec.
Type: Magic
School: Shadow
Radius: 30 yards

* Lava Bomb

Throws a Lava Bomb at an enemy, creating a fire that inflicts 3200 Fire damage over 8 sec.
School: Fire
Range: 100 yards
Fire Radius: 5 yards

This boss was the first boss to introduce a reason for the spell Tranquilizing Shot, a hunter spell which was learned from a tome which dropped from Lucifron (Molten Core’s first boss). The idea was that he would enrage, which would cause his attack speed and damage to increase so heavily that main tanks everywhere would fall to his brute strength. It was also key to have a group of hunters with Tranq. shot so that they could keep a rotation of who was using the spell and whether it was a hit or a miss.

This was also the first boss that introduced the ever-so-simple raid tactic of “STAY OUT OF THE FIRE!” While unbelievably easy to counter, you will always encounter that one (or more) raid member who doesn’t realize that the orange-red stuff under his feet is actually killing his character. This maneuver has been a staple of many different raid bosses, and this was the first raid boss that implemented the strategy (at least, this is the first I can remember).

He also had a fear which made dwarf priests and shamen unbelievably useful. Why dwarf priests, you ask? Oh, that’s right, you might not remember. At one point, dwarf priests were the only priests (rather, the only race/class combo) that was given the spell Fear Ward, which made any single fear attack on the target null and void, thus breaking the ward. It was crucial that some kind of fear-dispelling spell was placed on the tank, because even though the tank would not lose aggro, Magmadar would follow the tank, which would put the healers out of max range, and thus vulnerable to the fear. If a fear ward or a tremor totem couldn’t be placed in time, a Warrior (yes, 10 times out of 10 the tank in Vanilla WoW was a warrior) would have to do something which is known as a “stance dance”, where he switches from defensive stance to bezerker stance, which would remove the fear, and then back to defensive stance.

If you could manage to stay out of the fear, the fire, and his face, you could end up with some phat loot, including your Tier 1 legs. My personal favorite was the Magma Tempered Boots. Here’s the rest:

Earthshaker
Eskhandar’s Right Claw
Striker’s Mark
Medallion of Steadfast Might
Obsidian Edged Blade
Quick Strike Ring
Aged Core Leather Gloves
Deep Earth Spaulders
Fire Runed Grimoire
Flameguard Gauntlets
Flamewaker Legplates
Mana Igniting Cord
Sabatons of the Flamewalker

And to think, at one point, this was some of the best loot you could find in the game…ahh the memories.

Anyway, tune in weekly for more Raiding to the Past!

~Baros

For retribution paladins, a solid DPS rotation is based on the fact that cooldowns are not coming up at the same time. In the case of rotation, many people go by what’s known as a “First Come First Serve” (FCFS) rotation. This is because there is no pattern in retribution paladin DPS that would allow us to simply set up our spells in a 1,2,3,4 fasion and just go down the list.

Just remember, on the off-chance that two spells come off the rotation at the same time, PRIORITIZE!

Judgement > Exorcism > Crusader Strike > Divine Storm > Consecration > Holy Wrath

Before any encounter, make sure you are set up for optimum DPS by having Retribution Aura on as well as Seal of Vengence or Corruption. Start off your “rotation” with a Judgement followed by a Consecration. I would go with Judgement of Wisdom because it isn’t your job to worry about heals. You should be more concerned about keeping your mana bar full, because without mana, you’re not going to be doing any serious DPS. Next I would open up a Crusader Strike, simply because it is instant cast, which means faster damage. Divine Strike is next on the list, and works wonders if you are in a group of mobs that require you to deal AoE damage. At this point, your Crusader Strike should be up again, so hit your mob with another one, and then you can follow up with an Exorcism (if the mob is a demon or undead, it will crit, which means extra damage spikes in your DPS). Mana may become an issue, but if you are constantly using Divine Plea, there should be no problems.

Now, some of you may be wondering “What happened to Seal of Command”? Well this spell was great back in the day, but after a few revisions of the spell, it turns out that Seal of Corruption does more overall DPS than Command. *Command may work better in PvP, but I have yet to test this out.

SO TO RECAP:

– There is no solid rotation for Retribution Paladin DPS. You should constantly be on the lookout for which spells are coming up next and use them as they come off the cooldowns.

– Prioritize your spells, make sure that you are doing the most DPS when two or more spells come off cooldown.

– Make sure you are making good use of your Divine Plea spell

Happy Playing!

~Baros