I still get teary-eyed when doing the Wrathgate quests.
And despite the possibility of faction switching, I will NEVER go to the Horde just because of what some of the Forsaken did.
FOR THE ALLIANCE.
Even if Varian is a douchebag.
Sigh.
// 
Author: Kurn
//Whew.
//Finished all the fires in the old world, Outlands and Northrend on my shammy. Got easily a full level of experience and a whackload of gold. And none too soon, either, since Midsummer ends in 4 hours.
Go me.
The shammy.
//According to WarCraftRealms.com, my shaman was level 14 on June 16, 2007. Since then, she’s moved from Eldre’Thalas, to Proudmoore, to Bronzebeard and back to Eldre’Thalas (to supposedly level with my brother on his rogue… We ran one Nexus together, did some quests and, after that 3 hours together, over the course of two days, he got bored.). She’s had an interesting existence.
Right now, she’s honoring and desecrating all the fires she can get to because, DUDE, with the 10% experience shoulders, that’s 22k experience for a desecration and 11k experience for honoring a flame.
That’s a ton of XP!
Of course, there’s less than 24 hours to take advantage of it, so I did Outlands and am almost done with Eastern Kingdoms. I’ve gained about half a level of XP from it today. Which, at level 72, is pretty substantial. And since it’s all *quests*, your rested doesn’t vanish. Pretty sweet.
Plus, you get some gold too, which is also nice.
Anyways, of note, I healed Azjol-Nerub on the shammy tonight for the first time. Level 77 prot warrior tanking made things much easier. ;) And you know what ELSE makes that place a CRAPTON easier as a healer? CLEANSING TOTEM. Best frigging totem in the entire UNIVERSE. EVER. Geez. Absolutely disgusting how awesome that is. Imagine — one GCD to drop the totem… instead of spamming Cleanse, at a certain mana cost AND countless GCDs… It was fun.
Best part — got a resto belt upgrade from the last dude, then the quest rewards were great as I got resto gloves from one quest and DPS boots from another. Dual specs are fun. :)
About to ding 73 when I honor/desecrate my next fire, too. Only four more levels ’till I can fly in Northrend. Cannot come soon enough.
… sigh.
//So I went through my parses from last night’s raid and was just randomly looking at something and then got it in my head to examine the pallies in more depth than I have in a while. The holy paladins, that is.
Why do I do this to myself? Why do I look and see what they’re doing wrong? Because I’m a moron, that’s why.
Anonymous report link:
http://wowwebstats.com/tpqaqvbd2ukbc?ab=54153
See that? I’m Virgo. (Which is funny, ’cause I’m really a Taurus and Taurus is our prot pally, but anyways.) The other two listed there are the other holy paladins.
Granted, Leo was only there for Mimiron and Vezax, I believe, whereas Gemini was there for the whole raid, but do you see what I see? Like, do you see the abysmal uptime for them both for Judgements of the Pure?
I … … don’t have words. 15% haste is… what, a BAD thing? Are they ALLERGIC to haste? Granted I don’t keep it up all the time on Vezax when mana is a sacred, treasured resource and judging costs 197 mana, but I still use it SOMETIMES. And it’s still useful on, you know, THORIM and FREYA and MIMIRON and ARCHAVON and EMALON.
Honestly.
The other really, really, REALLY sad thing? No one freaking uses Sacred Shield.
Sadly, the “this person cast Sacred Shield” stats aren’t available in WWS, but my World Of Logs parse says:
Virgo (me) – 235 casts
Taurus (prot pally) – 191 casts
Leo (holy) – 12 casts
Gemini (holy) – 25 casts
Aries (ret) – 22 casts
ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?!
So… yeah. I don’t know why I look at the parses. I really don’t. I’m not perfect, 235 casts on 4 hours is kind of poor, but HOLY CRAP, man. 12?! 25?! 25 casts over FOUR HOURS?! I hate people.
Random thoughts…
//There are far too many kinds of raiders.
1) Those who don’t want to do any work and get dragged through content for phat lewtz.
2) Those who don’t even care about loot and only want to get through content for the sake of having gone through it.
3) Those who like farm nights because it means they can be gracious and give their spot up to someone while they sit on standby.
4) Those who hate farm nights because they get bored easily and it’s hard to maintain concentration and yet they have to go because the guild is low on their spec/class/etc.
5) Those who like progression nights because it means working on something NEW!
6) Those who like progression nights because it means the possibility of NEW LOOT!
7) Those who hate progression nights because they’re cheap morons who can’t figure out how to make gold in this game.
8) Those who hate progression nights because they think they’ll put in all this effort and then won’t be on for the kill which will, of course, not be tonight.
All of this is rattling around inside my head.
Is it a GOOD thing that I’m rarely on standby? Sure, because I like content, I’m getting emblems of conquest, chances on loot, DKP…
But it’s also a bad thing, because raid time is split between the other pallies, it’s a bad thing because I’d LIKE to get a night off, now and again…
Tonight, well, last night was Tuesday and we had like, 34 people online. Wednesday, we won’t have that many. Thursday, we’ll have less. It confuses me. Then again, I never did understand loot whores or people who didn’t *want* to progress.
Anyways.
A-posting we will go…
//Haven’t written much here about raiding of late. Or much of anything barring the 3.2 holy paladin changes that will KILL ME. But this isn’t a post about 3.2. It’s a post about recent achievements, recent happenings and the fact that I miss being remotely knowledgeable about hunters.
The big thing… Yogg died on June 18th.
A question.
//Which is cooler?
ToonName, Hand of A’dal
or
Twilight Vanquisher ToonName
I think that, given the fact that Hand of A’dal was removed when 3.0 came out and that Twilight Vanquisher is now for the previous tier of content versus the previous expansion… Hand of A’dal is cooler.
I’m both, on my pally. But I earned Hand of A’dal by leading the raids that led to that title. I did it with friends of mine. Twilight Vanquisher was the most challenging fight I’d ever done as a healer, though, and I felt like I earned it, and it was snazzy, but it didn’t mean the same as Hand of A’dal.
So I’m still reppin’ Apotheosis with the Hand of A’dal title.
BTW, our Illidan kill is up at warcraftmovies:
http://www.warcraftmovies.com/movieview.php?id=115477
Think I’m gonna try to level the shammy a bit. I can’t believe I moved her back to Eldre’Thalas for like, 3 hours of playtime with my brother. Sigh.
Gutted.
//I am absolutely gutted by some of the paladin changes coming up for 3.2. Like, just ruined.
- Divine Intellect: This talent now gives 2/4/6/8/10% increased intellect instead of 3/6/9/12/15%.
- Illumination: This talent now returns 30% of the mana cost of the spell instead of 60%.
30%?! THIRTY PERCENT?! Are you KIDDING me?! I was playing a paladin when Illumination was at 100%. I was there when they nerfed it to 50% and then reconsidered and buffed it back to 60%. I am STILL bitter about THAT nerf and that was two years ago! And now they’re halving THAT number?!
YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME.
Honestly, I know a lot of people complain about stuff like this, but this is proof that no one at Blizzard plays a holy paladin in Ulduar. If they did, this wouldn’t happen.
I feel like we, the players, are being punished because Blizzard itemized us TOO WELL in tier 7, which is why we’re looking at T8 and going “hah, as IF,” and all kinds of plate Mp5 gear is getting DEed. The answer, Blizzard, is NOT to nerf the living shit out of the class. The answer is to ITEMIZE BETTER for T9. Give up T8 as not remotely worth our time and have Tier 9 be *awesome* for us so we WILL give up Tier 7.
5% less intellect, half the mana regen I normally get… do you REALLY think that’s the way to get me to let go of my T7 4-piece bonus? NO. 5% off the cost of Holy Light? I’m going to cling to that even MORE tightly now.
Oh my God, the sheer rage and disappointment is just… wow.
… in good news, Yogg to 5% last night.
But OH MY GOD, Illumination to 30%?!?!?!
Must breathe and later compose a forum post to post on the cesspool that is any official Blizzard forum, in the hopes that this madness can be stopped.
Bet you $10 that they revert it to 45% or so and everyone takes it as a victory, too. Everyone except me, that is. Fuckers.
Another new build…
//Given that Yogg-Saron is still up, I have retooled my second holy spec.
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#sxA0gM0sVuctgdxMZVcb
I decided to keep Sacred Cleansing because it procced something like 138 times out of the 507 times I cleansed something or someone, which is about 27% of the time. That’s not bad at all. It’s not GREAT, but it’s not terrible. That’s 27% more resistance to various debuffs.
And I kept Guardian’s Favor, too, so that I could easily BOP (I’m sorry, I KNOW it’s Hand of Protection, but I can’t bring myself to say HOP!) someone in a constrictor if I need to.
Well, that’s the plan. Raid invites in 30 and it’s pouring rain here, with some thunder and threat of hail and stuff. GOOD TIMES.
One messed up spec…
//So I’m currently, are you ready for this…
54/12/5
So disturbing.
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#sxA0gM0sVuctgdxMuoZV
I’m trying it out with regards to Yogg for the Sacred Cleansing, Divine Sacrifice and Guardian’s Favor. Not sure if there’s a difference yet due to the Cleansing, but I’ve used BOP, er, hand of protection, a lot more than previously. Haven’t used Divine Sacrifice yet, though.
Currently at the 2h6m mark of our “mega-raid”.
Still not out of Phase 2 on Yogg and Razorscale is down, but it was oogly.