Category: gear

So close!

Kurn / / gear, paladins, ramblings

We brought Vashj down to 3% last night. I’m sure we’ll get her on this coming reset, but it’ll require some changes to our strategy I think. Apparently, my ranged isn’t doing what they’re supposed to be doing, although happy coincidences last night made it work out okay, more or less. Well, obviously, if we got her to 3%. Stupid poison got us, obviously. But it was really just us being silly and not moving her around enough.

In other news, attunement. Obviously, I have the Vials of Eternity quest sitting happily in my log and now that we’ve downed Al’ar (on Sunday), a bunch of my guildies just need to go kill Rage Winterchill to be attuned to BT. Of course, I am not one of them. I need to talk to Seer Olum tonight in SSC, because I was stuck on the Arcatraz portion of that attunement quest forever, because I hate instances, specifically TK instances, with a passion. Well, I finally got it done and then the 5-man quest in SMV that follows it up just sat in my log.

This afternoon, I remembered “oh, right, need to talk to the dude in SSC tonight”, so I looked up the quest and was like… oh, right, this is why I haven’t done it. A 5-man quest. So I asked in guild chat if anyone wanted to do a quick 5-man quest in SMV so I could talk to the dude in SSC tonight.

<crickets chirp>

Which is what I’d expected. :P

So I check out the quest on WoWHead: Akama’s Promise.

People are saying they’ve soloed it. Mostly ranged classes, though. Hm.

I gave it a shot. The summoners were easy — kill them, heal through archers, then jump off that platform. You eventually drop out of combat and can eat/drink… and kill the other one. Rinse and repeat.

Then Deathwail landed. I was a little scared of the fear, but it only caused trouble once. I had him to about 35% when someone randomly whispers me for an invite. OMG, it’s a shammy! A random shammy! So I invite them, they proceed to HEAL ME (hooray!) and then we go to town on Deathwail. BAM, down 30 seconds later.

A productive WoW day even if I do nothing else, and I get to feel good about myself because, shammy or no shammy, Deathwail would have died. I, a holy paladin, essentially soloed a 5-man quest. Or could have soloed. That feels good, to be honest.

Badge gear vs. Tier gear

Kurn / / gear, general

So tonight, my guild got Fathom-Lord Karathress down for the second time. And, for the second time, no “of the Champion” tokens dropped. (You’d think out of six tokens dropping, at least one would be “of the Champion”, but no. You’d be wrong.)

I am fast-approaching 100 badges. I’m not a holy paladin who enjoys healing 5-mans or heroics. Karazhan and I have essentially parted ways. I get my badges by raiding, now, which I quite enjoy doing. I picked up 9 badges tonight, then added another two through dailies and I’m up to 69 (quit chuckling!) badges.

So because I’m at the point where, when our badge vendor on Eldre’Thalas eventually opens, I should have enough badges to replace Jade Ring of the Everliving with Anveena’s Touch. A clear upgrade, since it’s almost identical to the Jade Ring, but with actual stats.

I could save my badges for the Gavel of Naaru Blessings if I really wanted, but Vashj going down is just a matter of time, and she has a pretty sweet Lightfathom Scepter. So, assuming I don’t want to save up for the mace… should I drop 100 badges on Greaves of Pacification?

I want my T5 set bonus. Quite badly.

(4) Set: Your critical heals from Flash of Light and Holy Light reduce the cast time of your next Holy Light spell by 0.5 sec for 10 sec. This effect cannot occur more than once per minute.

Seriously? A 1.5 second Holy Light for 10 seconds? Once per minute? That’s just disgustingly great.

However, not getting my pants yet again made me look at the numbers. Obviously, with 4 pieces of Tier 5, the Crystalforge Leggings are superior. But otherwise, properly gemmed and threaded, the badge pants are kind of frickin’ awesome.

Total of 176 healing, 12 mp5, 34 spell crit and 36 int on the T5 pants, compared to 181 healing, 17mp5 and 47 int on the badge pants.

More healing, a substantial amount of mp5 and 11 more int, which is 165 more mana, not to mention more healing due to my talents.

But what about that pesky 34 spell crit? That’s 1.45% at level 70, which would boost me from 20.95% holy crit (unbuffed) to 22.4% holy crit (unbuffed). Which is 28.4% Holy Light crit. Which is frickin’ awesome with that T5 4-piece set bonus.

But on their own? I think they kind of fail to match up with the solid regen off the badge pants.

Coriel, at Blessing of Kings, talks about this briefly, but the article pre-dates 2.4 badge stuff.

Alternatively, I could hold out for the T5 pants and get Libram of Mending for 20 badges to aid with my regen, and still upgrade my ring as soon as the vendor opens, like I planned to.

I’ll keep you folks updated on my decision, but you’re free to leave a comment with any advice. :)