Category: q&a

Kurn's Q&A #18

Kurn / / addons, icecrown citadel, paladins, q&a, raiding, ramblings

Welcome to Kurn’s Q&A! This week seems to be focused on heroic Putricide and the Unbound Plague. And no wonder people are searching for information on those. The heroic Professor Putricide encounter is one of the more difficult ones I’ve encountered this expansion, primarily because you need to heal a lot of damage, do a lot of damage and avoid a lot of damage. It kind of sucks that way, but I think you really feel good about yourself when you get ‘er done.

1) “unbound plague third phase?”

Oh yes. Indeed. It’ll spawn somewhere in phase 3, probably about 30 seconds in or so. And it’s NASTY, trying to pass that off, while dodging goo, slime puddles and OH, doing damage to the boss or healing the LIVING CRAP OUT OF THE RAID.

2) “parry haste” “heroic saurfang”

Nope! Check out this site for a confirmed list of who has parry haste enabled or disabled.

What you’re probably witnessing and thinking is a parry haste is his Frenzy. He’ll Frenzy at about 25%.

3) “avr in 3.3.5”

Gone! Or, at least, broken. Say bye to pretty pictures on the ground and amazing radiuses like those for Unbound Plague!

4) “can you pass unbound plague while bubbled?”

I know you can GET Unbound Plague while bubbled. So when it comes to passing it, I would presume so.

5) “does divinity work on judge of light”

Not the way you think it does. Check out my experiment here.

6) “how to see unbound plague without avre”

With great difficulty? ;)

No, seriously, there’s an animation for it. It’s a black, swirling cloud that you can see pretty clearly in this TankSpot video.

Note that this probably requires you to turn up your particle density. I play with my particle density all the way down and don’t see this at *all*.

7) “ignoring unbound plague”

You don’t exactly want to ignore it, because it will kill you if you do. After about 10 seconds, pass it off to someone. Do not take it back, due to the fact that you’ll have a debuff on you that will cause more damage if you get the plague again. In a 25-man scenario, though, it’s easy to go through several attempts without ever picking up the plague. There are just a lot of other targets available. It’s probably the one heroic mode that might actually be easier on 25-man than on 10-man, although 10-man still gives you plenty of room to maneuver. Maybe we’ll call it even.

8) “seal of light vs. seal of wisdom and icc 3.3.3”

Seal of Wisdom if you use Holy Light primarily and Seal of Light for Valithria Dreamwalker/if you’re a FoL paladin. Along with their respective glyphs, of course!

9) “tightening waistband vs lonely noble holy”

Given the 10-man regular version of Tightening Waistband, the 10-man heroic version of Tightening Waistband and the Belt of the Lonely Noble, the choice is clear: 10m-heroic TW has more haste. If you’re more of a FoL paladin already at 676 haste, go for the Belt of the Lonely Noble for the extra crit and loss of mp5. Of course, Belt of the Lonely Noble is BOE and is a solid piece anyways.

10) “will bubble remove emerald vigor”

This is actually a wonderful question. Emerald Vigor and Twisted Nightmares are technically *debuffs*. I don’t tend to bubble during the Dreamwalker encounter, though. I think I might have done so once and I’m pretty sure I would have noticed if I lost my stacks. So I’ll say no, it won’t. But take that with a grain of salt.

Kurn's Q&A #17

Kurn / / achievements, facepalm, healing, icecrown citadel, q&a, raiding, ramblings, tanks

Man, it’s starting to get bright super-early over here. 5:34am as I start to write this and I can see across the street in the early morning light. I’m clearly up wayyyyyyy too late. :P And I can’t even blame it on raiding!

Ah, well. Time for another bunch of keywords that led people to the site.

1) shadow priest sindragosa heroic 25

I have to come out in favour of this. Vampiric Embrace is very useful on any fight with a persistent aura, such as Sindragosa or Blood Queen.

2) “pit of saron” tips skip riding

Okay. First of all, I hate people skipping the last few trash pulls. If you time it right, you can skip three of the last four groups of trash. This is, in my mind, an exploit. You are not MEANT to skip this trash. This trash is blocking the path you need to take to the final boss of the instance. That means it’s not optional. Man up and interrupt the flame caster guys on the first two pulls.

3) 16 int or 30 spellpower holy paladin

Bracers, right? I prefer 16 intellect because I’m a Holy Light-style paladin. Obviously, if you’re a spellpower-stacking, Flash of Light-style paladin, you want 30 spellpower. And if you’re new to 80 and don’t have 2000 spellpower yet, you want 30 spellpower.

4) bringing in kingslayer to trigger hard modes

Lame. True, you can probably kill Marrowgar and definitely Gunship on heroic modes without too much trouble, but lame, lame, lame. Go kill the Lich King first. Then you can trigger any hardmode you want.

5) can’t keep people alive in trial of the champion

You know what? That’s not horribly uncommon. I had a hell of a time keeping people up on my resto druid when I was a fresh 80. You just need to be aware of the various abilities. Turn around to not face Eadric the Pure so you don’t get stunned. Cleanse various debuffs off your party. If you get Paletress, Tremor Totem, Fear Ward, whatever you got to keep yourself from being feared. Having said that, though, if it’s not an exceptional environmental thing you can’t heal through, check your gear, your spec and glyphs. Maybe you’re just not ready to heal it.

6) does having someone suicide in phase 3 on professor putricide hardmode work?

Interesting idea. I presume you mean someone with Unbound Plague running out and dying to it? Maybe, although I doubt this is what the game designers had in mind when coming up with the fight. It’s very possible to do it using the more traditional method of dealing with Unbound Plague which is to pass it around the raid. (FYI: you still get it with Divine Shield up!)

This sounds a lot like the whole “let the first mark die” on Saurfang thing. Which just makes me roll my eyes.

7) dont wanna go to zangarmarsh

Hahahaha, yeah, me either! You can stay in Hellfire and do all the quests which should ding you 63-64. Once you hit 64, you can hit up Nagrand. You can probably start getting Terokkar quests around 62-63, too. Congratulations! You’ve skipped Zangarmarsh!

8) glory of icecrown raider total hours spent

Wow, that’s a very interesting search. I only have 25-man experience, so let’s see…

Considering all I’m missing is I’ve Been Waiting a Long Time for This achievement on Lich King, I have to say a LOT of my recent raid time has been taken up by driving towards this achievement. I’m taking into consideration how long it took us to down heroic modes like Sindragosa (weeks!) and also Gunship (first attempt). Probably anywhere from 30-40 hours of dedicated wiping just for the heroic modes, with additional wipes and issues on Boned, Full House, I’m on a Boat, Portal Jockey, All You Can Eat… So maybe 40-50 hours of wipes.

Yeah, now I want to quit…

9) what’s the priest bubble shield speed boost

It’s a deep holy talent called Body and Soul.

10) what does eh mean paladin

Well, I’m Canadian, so the first thing I think of is “eh?“… but you’re probably talking about EH — Effective Health for tanks. Your effective health is what your health actually is due to mitigation provided to you by things like armor.

Here’s an effective health calculator from my favourite warrior tank site. Go nuts. :)

Kurn's Q&A #16

Kurn / / coliseum, gear, general, healing, icecrown citadel, paladins, q&a, raiding, tanks

Ah, Tuesdays. Relaxing day with no raid. It feels sooooo good to chill.

And I kind of deserve the day off, even if it’s nothing special and we always have Tuesdays off. We downed heroic 25-man Sindragosa on Monday, bringing us to 11/12 HM in ICC 25. Gah. I’m so worn out. Of course, our second holy paladin is apparently going to be MIA for a MONTH starting after Thursday, so I am not going to get a lot of recovery time. I told the raid leader that we needed not just one more paladin, but two, because I NEED a night off sometimes without the potential guilt that a raid can’t happen. Neither of us were there last Thursday, since we, strangely enough, both had our birthday on Friday, so in three hours they only got heroic Rotface, heroic Festergut and a few attempts at heroic Putricide before downing him on regular.

Anyways, guilt and obligation are not a factor tonight, so I ordered pizza and will be watching some TV shortly. While I wait, it’s time for Search Terms I Wish To Expound On!

1) unbound plague melee

Probably the most important thing you need to do if you, as melee, get Unbound Plague is to run the hell out of melee until you and people in melee no longer have it. The worst case scenario is that everyone, including your tank, keeps passing Unbound Plague around, increasing your debuff stacks and then you all die.

Check with your raid leader, but that thing spreads FAST, so my advice is to get out ASAP.

2) “divine sacrifice” putricide hm

Dear sweet God, if you have it as a holy or ret pally, bubble and hit Divine Sacrifice in P3. Right about when the third stack of Mutated Plague starts hitting the tanks is a REAL good time for the whole raid to take 20% less damage, assuming you have Divine Guardian, or a good time for your group to take 30% less damage. (Do not hit Divine Shield and Divine Sacrifice if you are a protection paladin who has stacks of Mutated Plague, because you will heal Putricide.)

3) 2 beacons on 1 tank

Yep, no problems here. They do stack. Bear in mind that there is lag between the casted heal on a person and the person with beacon, so watch your tank anyways.

4) anti magic zone viable for sindragosa hardmode?

This is a great question. I don’t actually know. I will state, with confidence, that nothing but LOS is wiping off stacks of Mystic Buffet. But AMZ may be useful for P3 on heroic Sindragosa, perhaps allowing people to drop Instability stacks in the raid for a short time.

5) can fury of frostmourne be bubbled through?

Excellent question. I’ll try that this reset. I think one of our shammies Reincarnated on Monday’s LK kill after FoF, so…

6) do you have to interupt npc in frost tomb lich king

I love that I’m answering this without actually ever getting sucked into Frostmourne.

– If you’re a DPS, you need to kill the bad NPC and that includes interrupting his cast.
– If you’re a healer, you need to heal the good NPC and that includes dispelling the magic effect on him.
– If you’re a healer who cannot dispel magic, you must heal your good NPC and then interrupt the bad NPC’s cast. Shammies would, in this case, use Wind Shear. Druids will need to bear form and bash.

So unless you’re a priest or a paladin, you need to interrupt the bad NPC’s cast. If you’re a priest or a paladin, you just need to dispel magic or cleanse the debuff on your good NPC.

7) haste pally 3.3.3 holy

If you’re someone stacking spellpower and mostly casting Flash of Light, get to 676 haste and then stop worrying about it, given Wrath of Air Totem, Improved Moonkin Aura/Swift Retribution Aura and Judgements of the Pure.

If you’re a holy paladin who stacks intellect and mostly casts Holy Light, don’t stop stacking haste! Ever! :) Stat priority goes:

Intellect > Haste > MP5 > Crit > Spellpower

8) nagrand level range

I believe 64 is when you can start picking up quests in Nagrand and you can easily spend four levels there if you do ALL of the quests, including some group quests like Durn the Hungerer, the forge camps, etc. And Corki. But I prefer leaving him to die. I hate that bastard.

9) prot pally why not divinity

This is an interesting question. After all, Divinity improves the healing you take by up to 5%, right?

The issue here is one of what is a better allocation of those five talents.

A semi-typical spec for a raiding prot paladin would look something like this:

http://www.wowhead.com/talent#sZVhxA0uMusIufdxfbzbc

With a spec that’s 0/53/18, could you take five points out of ret and sneak them into Divinity? Sure. But you’d be losing out on more damage done out of something like Crusade and Seal of Command or utility out of Pursuit of Justice. It’s not really worth it when you have Improved Devotion Aura which you should usually have on if only for the armor bonus, which also adds 6% extra healing. If you are suffering so much that you feel you really need the 5% extra healing from Divinity, your healers are slacking.

As a tank, you have two main jobs.

a) Hold threat. You hold threat by doing damage and using high-threat abilities.
b) Stay alive. You stay alive by virtue of the gear you’re wearing and various cooldowns like Divine Protection, Ardent Defender and other forms of avoidance (dodge/parry) and mitigation (block).

Your first responsibility is to pull everything on to you and hold them there. Your survivability, while most certainly something that should concern you, is not your most pressing concern. If you’re specced and geared properly for the content you’re attempting, your healer(s) should be able to keep you up. Blow cooldowns if you have to, but you should not need the extra 5% healing. Consider those to be points incenting holy paladins to start dropping points in Protection.

10) toc toc different lockouts?

Yep. There are FOUR lockouts for Trial of the Crusader.

a) Trial of the Crusader, 10 man (regular)
b) Trial of the Grand Crusader, 10 man (heroic)
c) Trial of the Crusader, 25 man (regular)
d) Trial of the Grand Crusader, 25 man (heroic)

Thankfully, Blizzard recognized that that is WAY too much time spent on the same bosses in what is the same blasted instance and changed hard modes for ICC back to being something you can trigger or select within the same instance of the raid.

Kurn's Q&A #15

Kurn / / cataclysm, gear, general, healing, icecrown citadel, paladins, priests, q&a, raiding

So I sat down to do this on Tuesday and realized I had a lot of other stuff to attend to, not the least of which was the Montreal Canadiens/Pittsburgh Penguins hockey game. GO HABS GO.

Ahem.

Anyways, here are 10 keywords that sent people to my site over the last few weeks that weren’t terribly well addressed in my blog. (You wouldn’t believe how many people google things like Toravon, still!)

1) shared lockouts kurn wow

Hah, cool, someone out there wants to know what I think of the shared lockouts in Cataclysm. I already addressed this, but as a recap:

– I LOVE the fact that 10s and 25s will be on the same lockout. LOVE it. No more overextending myself or feeling guilty for NOT overextending myself!
– I am apprehensive about the gear being the same regardless of raid size.
– I am downright terrified that any other incentive to run 25s will just not be enough and that people will flock to 10s just because they are less of a logistical nightmare.
– I will probably quit playing, period, if I can’t run 25s.

2) leet holy paladin healing techniques

Okay, that one made me laugh. First, I recommend my Holy How-To posts. Second, I recommend just overall awareness of your class abilities and researching fights to figure out in which fights they might be useful and, more importantly, at which points WITHIN the fights those abilities might be useful. Third, make sure you keep your buffs/debuffs up. A good holy paladin puts Sacred Shield on their tank and keeps the hot running. A GREAT holy paladin makes sure everything is always refreshed, including their judgement debuff if there’s no one else sharing that judgement, which means judging every 20 seconds. Of course, doing it when you can spare the GCD is the key, or else your targets are going to go splat.

3) best way to down dreamwalker

Well, technically, you don’t want to kill her. You want to heal her. ;) The key to the fight is not dropping your stacks of Emerald Vigor or, on heroic, Twisted Nightmares. Keep taking each portal, stack those stacks up and spam the living crap out of the boss.

4) “vengeful shade” addon

Don’t know of one. If you do, please, for the love of all that’s holy, tell me. Stupid Vengeful Shades. Why do they have to be so damn vengeful?!

5) /cancelaura power word shield threat tanks

This one confuses me. If you’re doing /cancelaura, it means you have the aura on you. So if you’re doing “/cancelaura power word: shield”, you’re getting rid of your shield.

There is only one time where I can foresee this being something you would ever WANT to do and that’s if you’re a protection paladin with points in Spiritual Attunement and your healer is a disc priest and you’re not getting mana back from being healed through damage being taken.

None of that has to do with threat, exactly, except that if you’re a prot pally, your threat depends on your mana in that it’s costly to keep throwing down Consecration.

If you have a disc priest shielding you in a dungeon (which is the only place it should matter — you should be taking enough damage to get mana back from shields in raid content) then just ask them not to shield you unless it’s an emergency, because you get mana back from being healed, not shielded.

All other tanks have no excuse to ever not want Power Word: Shield on them. It doesn’t affect rage mechanics, people. It used to. But not for a long time, now. Patch 3.0.2, to be precise.

6) 2 druids 3 mark of fallen champion

Ouch. I mean really, OUCH. I guess I would have to recommend bringing three healers for this, leaving one healer (a druid) on the raid until the last instant before the third mark comes out. Better still, bring a paladin and 2 other healers and that way, one of the druids can be on the raid full time.

7) best food for discipline priest

Since Borrowed Time and a moonkin aura/swift ret aura plus a Wrath of Air totem make the haste “cap” for disc priests really easy to hit, so they get a 1s GCD, the best food is either +46 spellpower (available in a Fish Feast or a variety of other foods) or +40 crit. +40 crit is over a full percent of crit, so it shouldn’t be looked down upon, particularly if you’re actually healing single targets as part of a tank healing team, because you DO want to proc Divine Aegis as often as you can. If, on the other hand, your primary responsibility in the raid is to cast Power Word: Shield, you’ll want +46 spellpower, since every bit of spellpower strengthens your shields, due to Borrowed Time.

8) best in slot pants for holy pally

I totally don’t even want to TALK about our stupid pants.

Actually, I take that back. I do want to talk about them. At great length. While ranting.

Our options for pants are HORRIBLE. Our T10 251/264 pants are awful. Even the 277s are pretty crappy. Seriously, here’s the comparison:

http://www.wowhead.com/compare?items=50866;51168;51271

Holy Light spamming paladins (which is the vast majority of us) should be looking for the following stats, in order:

Intellect, Haste, MP5, Crit, Spellpower

There is 0, check that, 0 haste on any of those pants. There is a mediocre amount of MP5 on any of them but the 277s. There is a huge amount of crit on these pants that I desperately wish could be converted to haste. And a truly ridiculous amount of spellpower! What gives?! This is our TIER?!

Assume we do not have access to any 277 legs.

http://www.wowhead.com/items=4?filter=qu=4;sl=7;ty=3:4;minle=251;cr=23:103:21;crs=1:1:3;crv=0:0:0

There are precisely 8 options item level 251 or over that we can consider. There’s 10, but you can’t be Horde AND Alliance, so you lose out on the mail and plate legs out of TOGC due to being on one faction or another.

Right now, I’ve got ilvl 258 Legplates of Failing Light. 116 intellect, 92 haste, 3 sockets. Pretty hot, right? Right. So hot that only two other items even come close to them.

The crafted Lightning-Infused Leggings offer 123 intellect (+7 from the Failing Light pants), 100 haste (+8 haste) and three sockets as well. The trouble is, you need to find a leatherworker who’s revered with the Ashen Verdict for these mail pants and then the mats include 8 Primordial Saronite. If you have nothing left to spend emblems of frost on, this is really easy to get, particularly if you’re raiding, but if you’re saving your emblems, the saronite alone can cost upwards of 1000g each.

Is 7 intellect and 8 haste really worth 8k+ gold?

Ehhhhhhhhhhhh.

The plate version? Even worse. The Puresteel Legplates also cost 8 saronite and aren’t even a haste upgrade from the Legplates of Failing Light as both items have 92 haste. 8k+ gold for 7 intellect, basically? No thanks!

The other real option is the heroic Corrupted Silverplate Leggings. 123 intellect (+7), 99 haste (+7) and three sockets. It’s an upgrade and it’s one that doesn’t cost eight thousand plus gold. The trouble here is that it requires killing heroic Marrowgar. On 10-man. Which means I’m never going to get these.

There’s another option, also a 10-man heroic drop, this time off Putricide. The Rippling Flesh Kilt gives the same amount of intellect (123) and 96 haste. Basically, if you’re running 10-man heroic ICC, the Marrowgar pants are easier to get by virtue of being an easier fight, but if you get Putricide down, go for these pants if you haven’t gotten the Corrupted Silverplate Leggings on heroic.

If you don’t have ilvl 258 pants like I do, the 251 versions of the Corrupted Silverplate Leggings and Rippling Flesh Kilt are nice enough, but if you’re really looking seriously at those, consider getting the mail legs crafted. They’re just a better upgrade overall.

I’m eventually going to have to bite the bullet and get either my ilvl 277 pants or the heroic Leggings of Dying Candles, both of which will actually only be a net gain of +3 intellect for me and hope that all my other 277 gear’s haste will compensate for the worst tier pants I’ve seen since T4. I value the Leggings of Dying Candles over the tier due to the extra socket and the increased MP5 versus the tier, by the way.

Whew.

9) boa libram for holy light

There is no Bind on Account (heirloom) libram, period. The best libram for Holy Light using paladins is the ilvl 200 Libram of Renewal, available for 15 emblems of heroism.

10) chestplate of septic stitches how should i gem

Honestly? It’s not a great breastplate. Let’s look at it.

There’s no haste. Three sockets is great for 3x+20 intellect, but… eh. The Lightsworn Tunic or, better yet, the Chestguard of Siphoned Elements off of Blood Queen Lana’thel in ICC 10 is a much better choice.

That said, if you’re asking how to gem it, you probably already have it. The answer is almost always “all intellect”, unless you’re a paladin who stacks spellpower and casts mostly Flash of Light. If that’s the case, that is a GREAT chest for a FoL spammer. Gem it with all +23 spellpower if you’re a FoL machine or if it’s for your Dreamwalker set. :)

Kurn's Q&A #14

Kurn / / general, icecrown citadel, paladins, q&a, raiding, ramblings

Gotta love Tuesdays. I spent some time doing 3v3 arenas tonight and we got our little team up to 1400. Which is where we’re stopping as we go nuts trying to get honor. This means I’m going to have to actually battleground. :(

“deathbringer saurfang” +heroic heal assignments

On our 25-man Deathbringer Saurfang heroic kill, here’s what we had:

3x Holy Paladin
1x Disc Priest
1x Holy Priest
1x Resto Druid
1x Ret Pally (judging light)
1x Shadow Priest (vampiric embrace)

Paladins were on the tanks and then given the following assignments:

Mark of the Fallen Champion 1: Holy Pally 1’s Beacon
Mark of the Fallen Champion 2: Holy Pally 2’s Beacon
Mark of the Fallen Champion 3: Holy Pally 3’s Beacon
Mark of the Fallen Champion 4: Holy Pally 1 (direct heals)
Mark of the Fallen Champion 5: Holy Pally 2 (direct heals)
Mark of the Fallen Champion 6: Holy Pally 3 (direct heals)

Naturally, the tank would require more healing as we shifted the pallies from the tanks to their marks. The disc priest was key for this and our normally Rejuvenation-happy resto druid was happily using Regrowth and Nourish on tanks while maintaining hots on the raid along with the holy priest’s renews and some shields from the disc.

One-shotted.

It should be noted that we also cast Hand of Protection on the first three casters to get Boiling Blood to delay the first mark’s cast — and if it was on us, we bubbled ourselves.

best 3.3pally holy shield drops from heroics

Sadly, there is no good healing shield from heroics. The best healing shield you can get outside of raid content is from REGULAR Pit of Saron, off Tyrannus. It’s called the Protector of Frigid Souls and is ilvl 219. That puts it on par with the Pulsing Spellshield from 10-man XT-002 Deconstructor in Ulduar, except I rate the PS higher, due to the haste.

The next step up is the Voice of Reason from Naxx 25, off Kel’Thuzad. For anything else, you’re looking at Trial of the Crusader and ICC. Or, if you have 1800+ team and personal ratings, you can get an arena shield.

More shield choices here at WoWHead.

blessing of protection work on magic buffett

Nope. That’s physical damage only. Magic Buffet is a magical effect that increases magical damage taken. Also not removable with Divine Shield.

curse of tongues putricide

Good question! I’m really not sure. Anyone have an idea?

getting flasks to proc on creation

There’s no rhyme or reason for it. It happens sometimes. It doesn’t happen most of the time. You need to be an Elixir Master alchemist for it to even have a chance, though.

hand of salvation marrowgar bone spike

Hm. Not really going to have much of an effect. Hand of Sacrifice, on the other hand (ha, ha, see what I did there?) would likely transfer 30% of that person’s incoming damage to you. ;)

haste cap holy paladin 3.3.3 patch

676 for Flash of Light paladins with Swift Retribution/Imp Moonkin auras and Wrath of Air totem. And the sky’s the limit for Holy Light bombers!

vile gas on rot

It sucks, doesn’t it? Same general rule as on Fester, 8 people out at range to prevent Vile Gas from being dropped on melee.

what buffs should i have up on my holy pally / what buffs does a druid give a paladin

A holy paladin is at their maximum healing potential with the following buffs (and their greater/raid-wide versions):

Blessing of Kings
Improved Blessing of Wisdom/Improved Mana Spring Totem
Arcane Intellect
Mark of the Wild
Moonkin Aura/Elemental Oath (5% spell crit)
Improved Moonkin Aura/Swift Retribution (3% spell/melee haste)
Wrath of Air Totem (5% spell haste)
Demonic Pact/Totem of Wrath/Flametongue Totem (additional spellpower)
Improved Devotion Aura/Tree of Life (increased healing done)

So druids, depending on which spec, can help out pallies a lot — Mark of the Wild from any of them, plus Moonkin/Imp Moonkin Aura or Tree of Life. Good stuff.

If you want to talk consumables:

Holy Light paladin: Flask of Distilled Wisdom (65 intellect) or Guru’s Elixir (20 to all stats) AND Elixir of Mighty Thoughts (45 intellect) & Imperial Manta Steak or Very Burnt Worg (40 haste).

Flash of Light paladin with proper raid buffs and 676 haste: Flask of the Frost Wyrm & any food that gives 46 spellpower.

when to call for cleanse on rotface

We generally cleanse (on heroic mode) at about 3 seconds. The person gets the infection. They get a disc shield. They run towards the OT. As they are running, they get cleansed. We do NOT tend to cleanse on normal.

Kurn's Q&A #13

Kurn / / healing, icecrown citadel, paladins, q&a, raiding, ramblings

It’s that time again! Lost and V watched, here are some quick questions I’ve picked up from my search terms in my web stats along with my own answers.

1) is there a way to make a mcro that tells you how much you healed someone for

The short answer is probably. Just get yourself a combat text addon like Mik’s Scrolling Battle Text or use the default scrolling combat text that Bizzard provides.

2) does divine intervention heal professor putricide

I have not tested this, but if it is cast on someone who has Mutated Plague, it will probably remove Mutated Plague. So yes, I imagine it would heal Putricide.

3) does divine sacrifice stack

No. This HAS been tested. The second one will overwrite the first one.

4) does libram of renewal stack with glyph of seal of wisdom

Absolutely. 5% off the cost of your healing spells and 113 mana off Holy Light. This is why it’s still our Best in Slot (BiS) libram. And it’s item level 200.

5) hardmode dreamwalker best way to hit red orbs

Ugh, ugh, ugh. I did this on Monday night for the first time. The orbs take a lot longer to respawn in the portal so I basically said “always move counter-clockwise and WATCH for people around you! Don’t ninja someone’s orb, wait the second or two for them to get it WITH YOU.” And this worked remarkably well.

6) healing toravon resto druid

As a druid, chances are, you are going to be healing the raid. On 10-man, try to keep Rejuvenation up on just about everyone. Use Wild Growth on cooldown. Be prepared to use WG right as a Whiteout is coming. On 25-man, I like to keep the active tank hotted, spreading Rejuv and WG throughout the raid as I’m able to. I like to try to keep a 3-stack of Lifebloom on the tank and let it bloom right after Whiteout. If all else fails, right as a Whiteout happens, hit Barkskin and then Tranquility.

7) how to be a tank

The basics are:
– hold aggro (attention from the angry things trying to kill your party)
– stay alive
– don’t be a dick to your healer. :P

Here’s a more detailed guide.

8) how to unlock hard modes icecrown citadel

Very simple: kill Arthas on regular difficulty. Anyone who has killed Arthas on regular difficulty can then form a raid and can turn on heroic difficulty. (Uh, by “Arthas”, I mean “The Lich King”.)

9) soloing first 2 mobs heroic forge

Easy mode as a paladin. Any tank class should be able to do this, really. It’s a little harder as a DPS, but if you happen to be able to CC an undead, you can do this easily as well. In my prot gear, I’d take them both on, Consecrating, use Seal of Light (and judging Light, too) and keep my defensive CDs up like Holy Shield and Sacred Shield. Easy. They don’t hit that hard in basic tanking gear and if you have things like Shield Wall or Frenzied Regeneration, these CDs should help you live through them.

10) soul shriek silence warriors ?

Yes. It does. Please cleanse or dispel Soul Shriek from your warrior tanks. Your raid members will thank you. ;)

Kurn's Q&A #12

Kurn / / dungeons, healing, paladins, q&a, ramblings, shamans, tanks

I really relish my Tuesdays off. I get to watch Lost and the newly-returned V and get to do WoW stuff that *I* want to do. Which includes writing on the ol’ blog. :)

1) best way to heal heroic falric with a shammy

Well, I don’t know if it’s the best way, but this is how I do it.

The real problem with Falric is the Defiling Horror for two reasons. The first is because it’s a horror effect, so Tremor Totem does nothing. The second is because everyone takes 16k damage. So what I do is endeavour to keep everyone topped up as close to max as possible before he casts the horror.

To recover from it, I cast Riptide on the tank and, using my hasted Healing Waves from Tidal Waves, I heal myself and a caster. Then I’ll Chain Heal off the Riptided tank, which will hopefully hit the tank and 2 melee. Then I’ll RT/HW anyone else who still needs health. Total time, with my crappy haste (400 haste + Wrath of Air) is about 8-9 seconds. I usually have enough time to get everyone to full, or close to it.

Apart from that, try to stay close together and bunched up for Chain Heal to get the maximum use possible from it.

2) choker of filthy diamonds or soulcleave pendant

Choker of Filthy Diamonds has more haste and mp5. Soulcleave Pendant has more crit. I definitely prefer the Choker for a holy paladin or possibly a resto shammy and likely a resto druid, since the nerf to Gift of the Earthmother, leaving the crit to priests. Maybe? I’m not sure how crit is for a holy priest these days, but I know crit is still awesome for a disc priest.

However, the Choker is off Rotface and the Pendant is off Saurfang. Really depends how far you’re getting into 10-man ICC, I think.

3) divine plea timer

Okay, I’m assuming you want a timer to tell you when Divine Plea is back up. For this, and any other cooldowns, I use OmniCC. It was my first-ever addon, as I recall. And it’s the one addon I cannot play without.

If you were looking for a timer to tell you how much of the 15 seconds your Divine Plea is still up for and such, I recommend Power Auras Classic to monitor if the buff is active on you or not.

4) hos divine shield holy macro wow

I haven’t actually tested this out, but this ought to work:

/cast Divine Shield
/cast [@target] Hand of Sacrifice
/raid Hand of Sacrifice is up!
/in 10 /raid Hand of Sacrifice is done!

That’s four lines and should work with two button clicks or presses. I highly recommend that your shield come FIRST in the macro, lest you be ruined in the face by whatever insane damage is hitting your target. Also, your @target could be @focus as well or even this:

[@mouseover,help,nodead]

5) paladin group buffs how to

Oof. Okay. The first thing to know here is what buffs other classes give that are equivalent.

Warriors: Battle Shout is equivalent to unimproved Blessing of Might. Improved Blessing of Might (2/2) requires the warrior to have 5/5 Commanding Presence to be equivalent. That’s in the third tier of the Fury tree. This is not part of a typical warrior build, as I understand it.

Shamans: Mana Spring Totem is equivalent to unimproved Blessing of Wisdom. Improved Blessing of Wisdom (2/2) requires the shaman to have 3/3 Restorative Totems which is the fourth tier of the Restoration tree. However, it leads to Mana Tide Totem which virtually all restoration shammies take.

This is the general order that I, personally, recommend for pally buffs:

Death Knights (DPS): Blessing of Might, Blessing of Kings
Death Knights (tank): Blessing of Kings, Blessing of Might
Druids (bear): Blessing of Kings, Blessing of Might
Druids (kitty): Blessing of Might, Blessing of Kings
Druids (moonkin): Blessing of Kings, Blessing of Wisdom
Druids (trees): Blessing of Kings, Blessing of Wisdom
Hunters (survival/marks): Blessing of Kings, Blessing of Might, Blessing of Wisdom
Hunters (BM): Blessing of Might, Blessing of Kings, Blessing of Wisdom
Mages: Blessing of Kings, Blessing of Wisdom
Paladins (prot): Blessing of Sanctuary, Blessing of Kings, Blessing of Might, Blessing of Wisdom
Paladins (ret): Blessing of Might, Blessing of Kings, Blessing of Wisdom
Paladins (holy): Blessing of Kings, Blessing of Wisdom
Priests: Blessing of Kings, Blessing of Wisdom
Rogues: Blessing of Might, Blessing of Kings
Shaman (enhancement): Blessing of Might, Blessing of Kings, Blessing of Wisdom
Shaman (elemental/resto): Blessing of Kings, Blessing of Wisdom
Warlocks: Blessing of Kings, Blessing of Wisdom
Warriors: Blessings of Kings, Blessing of Might

Of course, if you have a warrior in the group, it’s likely more beneficial to have them pop Battle Shout and you do kings than it is for no kings and your might, even if it’s improved. Same deal for wisdom and mana spring.

Alternately, you can buff everyone with Drums of Forgotten Kings and then give physical DPS might and healers and casters wisdom.

6) dk tanking halls of reflection

Note: I am not a death knight, nor am I a great tank. However, if you’re going to do the LOS method on Falric and Marwyn, just drop Death and Decay and hide around the corner. For any casters or the riflemen, Death Grip is great. For the chase scene, D&D is still awesome to use and you’ll want to Death Grip or Strangulate the Witch Doctors to bring them close if they’re a little far out. Blow your cooldowns when you can, saving Army of the Nub Dead for the second spawn of adds at the fourth wall on the chase scene.

7) list of cuts a purple gem can be cut to

Here’s a list of epic, level 80 purple gems. And here’s the list of rare-quality ones.

8) melee dps toravon guide

Hit boss. Don’t touch Frozen Orbs unless there are basically no ranged. Collect loot.

9) shammy tanking gear 3.3

Okay. You can equip a shield. This does not make you a tank. There is no mail gear out there at level 80 that has any kind of defense on it and very little leather, due to the druid changes. You would basically have to stack resilience. The major problem with shaman tanking, apart from the fact that you’re squishy as all get-out, is that a key to tanking is avoidance, like dodging, blocking and parrying. Your parry talent, Spirit Weapons, also reduces threat. Bad combo.

I don’t advise shaman tanking unless you’re doing it for fun with friends OR your tank on Lady Malande on the Illidari Council in Black Temple DROPS and your resident enhancement shaman thinks quickly, throws on a shield, pops Shamanistic Rage causing your raid leader to shout out over vent “ALL HEALS TO DUPER, ALL HEALS TO DUPER!”, which never had been heard before and never would be heard again. Ever. ;)

10) soul shriek aggro reset

Nope, there’s no aggro reset associated with Soul Shriek, as far as I can tell. It IS, however, a silence. Make sure someone is assigned to cleanse this magic effect off your tanks!

Kurn's Q&A #11

Kurn / / druids, general, icecrown citadel, paladins, q&a, raiding

As it’s patch day for 3.3.3, I highly anticipate servers dying and being unavailable and such, so I thought I’d sit down and hammer this out. (Speaking of, I’ve been very quiet on the subject of 3.3.3. This is primarily because they aren’t nerfing paladins or hunters. Which is a shocking, but welcome, change. Seems like they ALWAYS nerf one of the two.)

1) divine shield mutated plague / “mutated plague” mechanics / grid mutated plague

Okay, let’s talk about Mutated Plague then, shall we? ;)

Mutated Plague is the debuff that the tanks get in phase 3 of the Professor Putricide encounter. The debuff causes raid damage. The more stacks on a target, the more damage the raid takes. This is why a 2-tank strategy in 10m and 3-tank strategy in 25m is usually recommended. They taunt the boss in turn, rotating who gets stacks to help control the raid damage.

In my 25m raids, the taunt rotation goes thusly:

Tank 1 – 2 stacks of Mutated Plague -> Tank 2 – 2 stacks -> Tank 3 – 2 stacks -> Tank 1 – 1 additional for 3 stacks -> Tank 2 – 1 additional for 3 stacks -> Tank 3 – 1 additional for 3 stacks – > Tank 1 – 1 additional for 4 stacks

And so on. So it’s 2 stacks, then a total of 3, then a total of 4.

Thing is, if the stacks drop, you heal Putricide for a certain number multiplied by the number of stacks on the tank who dropped them. That means that if the stacks drop, for ANY reason, you just healed him for a ton of health. Divine Shield WILL wipe off stacks (Divine Protection will not, Divine Sacrifice/Divine Guardian will not). And so will death. So to get through Putricide, it’s pretty imperative that no tanks drop their stacks.

Anyone using Grid who wants to know when the taunt is supposed to happen should ABSOLUTELY put it in Grid.

Status, Auras, Add new Debuff, type in Mutated Plague. Then, Frame, Center Icon, add a tick next to Debuff: Mutated Plague.

Voila.

2) icc loot 10 man holy paladin

Honestly, I’m not terribly familiar with ICC 10 loot, but let’s take a look. I’ll just post some pieces from 10m normal. Obviously, if the piece isn’t plate, make sure no one of that armor class needs it more than you. Pass to your shammies, druids and casters and don’t be a dick. :) And, of course, this is all my humble opinion, so feel free to take it with a grain of salt. I’m evaluating all the loot on its own merits (or potential merits, in terms of tier possibilities) and does not take into consideration all the stuff you’re probably wearing. Note that I highly recommend 2pc T10 if only for the set bonus!

From Lord Marrowgar:

Coldwraith Bracers: Nicely itemized for a holy paladin. Haste, intellect, a socket for another +20 int gem. Don’t let the lack of crit scare you off; since the Illumination nerf to 30%, mp5 is a more reliable method of mana regeneration than crit is.

Ancient Skeletal Boots: Ehhhhh. No haste. Despite being a higher ilvl, not a significant upgrade from 245-level Boots of the Courageous. There are better boots in here for you.

Frost Needle: I know, I know. It has hit on it. Don’t steal this from any caster who has a legitimate use for the +hit. This is a nice sword for us, though — haste, intellect, spellpower. I’d value this over another weapon that drops later, actually.

Corrupted Silverplate Leggings: Sweet legs. I’d prefer mp5 to the crit, to be honest, but these are a solid pair of pants. Given that our tier pants kind of blow, IMHO, you should definitely pick these up if you can.

From Lady Deathwhisper:

Boots of the Frozen Seed: Moonkin loot, really. But if your boots suck, go for it. Great stats.

Deathspeaker Disciple’s Belt: Great belt.

Gunship:

Ice-Reinforced Vrykul Helm: Not too bad, compared to our T10 (251) helm. It’s actually better in a couple of aspects. However, if you ever think you’ll be in a 25m for a token or a 10m heroic for a token to upgrade a piece of tier to 264, the clear winner would be our T10 helm. Otherwise, it’s a nice hat!

Bracers of Pale Illumination: The Marrowgar bracers are, IMHO, better than these. Don’t go for the socket bonus for +4 intellect; it’s not worth what you’d lose from 20 intellect to 10 or something. If the socket had been yellow, it would have had a fighting chance. As it is, get the Marrowgar bracers if you can. These are still a good second choice, though.

Deathbringer Saurfang:

Soulcleave Pendant: Beauty. Snag it!

Festergut:

Festergut’s Gaseous Gloves: On the surface, better than the 251 Tier 10 gloves. And better than the 264s. Actually, they’re pretty darn good gloves to have over the tier, all the way up to 277 level. I personally prefer the Gauntlets of Overexposure from the Emblem of Frost vendor for 60 Emblems. Two sockets, like the Festergut gloves, but haste (which neither Festergut’s gloves nor any of our tier pieces have), a goodly amount of crit and intellect. So really, I’d pass on the gloves off Festergut unless you really have no way of ever getting 60 Emblems of Frost and your gloves are crap. Dreamwalker has a nice pair, though.

Signet of Putrefaction: Pretty ring! Very nice if you can’t get Marrowgar’s Frigid Eye, which is BOE. Your other ring, of course, should be your rep ring from the Ashen Verdict.

Rotface:

Shuffling Shoes: Remember that I was talking about better boots for you? These are the ones I was talking about. The leather ones off Deathwhisper have more haste, but these have haste, mp5 and two yellow sockets for an extra bonus of +4mp5 if you’re stacking +20 intellect gems. Earthsoul Boots are still better, but in a 10m setting, these are very nice.

Choker of Filthy Diamonds: Comparable to the Soulcleave Pendant. Based on your current stats, you’ll either want the tiny bit of extra int and the crit from the Pendant or the extra mp5 on the Choker.

Putricide:

Chestplate of Septic Stitches: Ooh, pretty! Too bad all the sockets are red. And there’s no haste. (Yes, hi, I’m a haste whore.) Honestly, I’d save up for the Lightsworn Tunic. But if you’re at 676 haste or more without your chest, then this is a solid upgrade for you out of 10m ICC. Still, there are other options.

Rippling Flesh Kilt: Pretty much awesome for pants. Even if they’re a kilt. Snag ’em if you can’t get the Marrowgar pants.

Princes:

Heartsick Mender’s Cape: A cloak with a socket and haste on it, unlike the Emblem of Frost vendor cloak? Yes, please!

Cerise Coiled Ring: Good alternative to the Signet of Putrefaction, but definitely second-best, IMHO.

Blood Queen:

Chestguard of Siphoned Elements: Amazing itemization for a paladin. This is actually better, IMHO, than T10’s 251 chest, but again, the T10 is upgradeable. This is not.

Tightening Waistband: My goodness, look. It’s plate. Why is all the great gear built for shammies? :P Honestly, though, you want Belt of the Lonely Noble (BOE from ICC 25) or Lich Killer’s Lanyard from the Emblem of Frost vendor. If you have neither, this is a great option out of 10m ICC.

Dreamwalker:

Emerald Saint’s Spaulders: Meh. I much prefer the Lightsworn Spaulders for the haste, but 2 sockets vs. 1 makes the Dreamwalker 10 shoulders very appealing.

Stormbringer Gloves: Another strong option for gloves.

Sindragosa:

Shoulderguards of Crystalline Bone: Better than the Emerald Saint’s Spaulders, to be sure, particularly with the haste.

Lost Pavise of the Blue Flight: No-brainer. Get it! Great itemization. Too bad there’s no socket, but honestly, this is a beauty.

Lich King:

Valius, Gavel of the Lightbringer: Stats are so-so. But hey, it’s from the Lich King, is ilvl 258 (same as Trial of the Grand Crusader) and it’s like, UTHER’S mace from his holy set! Heh. :)

Whew.

3) blessing of protection on sindragosa

Does absolutely nothing, sorry. :(

4) how to make a spell power set for dreamwalker

Without totally regemming everything that you regularly use? Yeah, not the easiest thing in the universe. I bought my tier chest and my tier gloves and gemmed them for spellpower (since I wanted to have my full tier anyways, even if I’m not using it) and I swap out Glyph of Seal of Wisdom for Glyph of Seal of Light. I have a pair of shoulders I use that are gemmed up with spellpower, too. Apart from that, you can always go back a tier and use T9 stuff. Heck, you can get T9 from emblems of triumph, so you can always get the T9 pieces and wear 3 of those (maintaining 2pc T10) if you don’t have old gear, etc.

5) should healers only run back?

Absolutely not. People who can resurrect should rez people if they die after the fight. If your rezzer runs, you run. Period.

6) warrior rage mechanics “shielded”

Check out WoWWiki: “As of Patch 3.1, will still allow warriors and druids to generate rage from damage absorbed.” So it’s fine. :)

7) stop casting divine plea

You can right-click it off, or use a macro like this:

#showtooltip divine plea
/cancelaura divine plea
/cast divine plea

So on your first click, you’ll cast Divine Plea. On your second click, you will cancel it. I do NOT use this macro because if I accidentally click twice (in the clicking-furiously process), I’m screwed.

Alternately, have

/cancelaura divine plea

as a separate button.

8) how do i keep judgements of the pure

Make sure you judge at least once a minute to maintain your Judgements of the Pure buff. Be aware that your judgements can MISS.

9) how to tank as a druid

Use Maul, use Swipe, use Mangle, use Lacerate. Done. ;) Seriously, check out this post at Big Bear Butt.

10) old school flasks elixir master

Yep, elixir masters can proc old-school flasks like Distilled Wisdom. Not that I proc often…. but I HAVE procced it. :)

Kurn's Q&A #10

Kurn / / cataclysm, healing, icecrown citadel, paladins, priests, q&a, raiding, ramblings, tanks

Strangely enough, I get a kick out of random search terms that lead here, so here’s the 10th post where I take a look at who’s been searching for stuff and my attempt to better answer the questions these people probably had.

1) paladin divinity jol

Yeah, basically, it doesn’t work the way you think it works. For whatever reason, it works on the judging paladin (and perhaps anyone else who has Divinity) but not on, say, a hunter. I know, weird, eh? Still, here are the results of the experiment I did.

2) “stained shadowcraft tunic” “enhancement shaman”

No, no, go get the Champion’s Deathdealer Breastplate. I know it’s mail, but even before 40, you’ll be able to equip it. It’ll be leather, effectively, ’till you ding 40 and then it’ll become mail. Same deal for your shoulders, get the Prized Beastmaster’s Mantle. Apart from anything else, intellect is a good stat to have — not only will it extend your mana pool, but also if you’re properly specced in the 50s or thereabouts, you’ll be getting Mental Quickness, adding to your attack power from your intellect.

3) anyway to keep focus frame through valithria

Not that I’ve seen. >< I use a macro to focus her:

/focus Valithria Dreamwalker

4) blood prince council+holy priest+bad

Nah, not bad. What we’ll typically do is 1-2 holy paladins, 1 disc priest, 1 resto druid, 1-2 resto shammies and a holy priest. The holy priest does very well in topping people off, saving people from their own idiocy. We have the shammies helping on tanks if we’ve just got the one holy pally, so the priest gets his Circle of Hax on and his Empowered Renew blasting through the raid. Works pretty well.

Of course, if you’re thinking their numbers suck, look at their assignments. Are they assigned to the raid with 3 resto druids? Then yes, they will appear “bad”. But unless you’re losing a bunch of people due to lack of heals (and not their own stupidity), your holy priest is probably doing fine.

5) can you remove mutated plague with divine protection

Okay, first of all, Divine Protection is the paladin equivalent of Shield Wall. So no, Divine Protection is not going to wipe Mutated Plague off the tank.

Mutated Plague is the debuff that Professor Putricide stacks on the tanks in Phase 3 of his encounter. Typically, on 25-man, we have Tank 1 take 2 stacks, then Tank 2 takes 2, then Tank 3 takes 2, then T1 takes 1, T2 takes 1, T3 takes 1, and so on until the good Professor is dead.

What WOULD drop Mutated Plague off is Divine Shield. But you DO NOT want to do this (and I suspect that’s why you asked if DP would wipe it off) because if MP drops off any target for any reason, it’ll heal the boss for a certain amount per stack that was on the tank. That includes tank death, that includes bubbling.

So please do feel free to use Divine Protection in P3 of Professor Putricide. :)

6) cataclysm “level 85″+”experience needed”

Okay, there’s like no information out for Cataclysm yet. I don’t think the Friends and Family Closed Alpha is even out yet. However, considering the level cap is moving up only five levels, I would have to presume that those are going to be some pretty epic levels and that you’ll have to get an obscene amount of experience to get to 85. That doesn’t mean that SOME crazy space goats won’t ding in like, four days, though, RIGHT OSEPHALA? ;)

7) divine illumination cooldown add on

I cannot pimp this enough: OmniCC is the best cooldown timer ever. It displays cooldowns by minute and then, at 60 seconds it displays by second until it’s up. This is one of the addons I cannot live without.

8) divine intervention macro

From my Holy How-To #3:

Here’s my “hey, I cast Divine Intervention on someone” macro. Note that you must be targetting the person you want to DI.

/cast Divine Intervention

/script SendChatMessage(“DI: The generous pally’s version of Bubble/Hearth.”, “WHISPER”, nil, UnitName(“target”));

/6 Divine Intervention cast on %t.

What that does is cast DI, then sends a whisper to your target saying: DI: The generous pally’s version of Bubble/Hearth. This can obviously be changed, that’s just my sense of humour. ;)

Then it announces to the healing channel (#6) that I cast DI on my target.

9) divine shield mystic buffet

Nope. It goes riiiiiiiight through Divine Shield. :(

10) grid show random dungeon tank

Ah, you’re using Grid and you want it to show you the roles of the people in your party, right? To my knowledge, there’s no way to show that in Grid as of yet. Your standard Blizzard UI party frames will show you the roles, though. Or, you can do what I do and that’s click on every possible person in your party who’s a pally, druid, death knight or warrior and pray that the one with the highest health is your tank…

Bonus question: how to tank as a paladin at lvl 20

20 is when it becomes easy. Make sure you have Righteous Fury on (which I believe still goes away after you die, so don’t forget to put it back on!) and judge your single targets. If you have more than 2-3 mobs, drop Consecration. Congratulations. You are now a leet threat machine!

Kurn's Q&A #9

Kurn / / general, q&a, raiding, ramblings

Search term time! Honestly, these amuse me a great deal.

1) holy paladin apotheosis

There are, doubtlessly, many other holy paladins in other guilds named Apotheosis. In fact, my holy paladin isn’t even in Apotheosis at the moment. But it’s still my guild and bunches of my peeps are still there. <3 I find it amusing that someone actually searched for “holy paladin apotheosis”. If they were searching for me, you’d think “kurn” would be easier to remember than “apotheosis”.

2) single abstract noun

Tam of Righteous Orbs and Miss Medicina of Miss Medicina have started up two blogging communities/guildies. Tam’s got Single Abstract Noun on Argent Dawn (EU – Horde) and MM has Single Abstract Noun on Argent Dawn (US – Alliance). I’ve got a toon on the US one (obviously) named Kurnmogh. I haven’t had a chance to hang out much, but hopefully I’ll be able to hang out a bit this week.

3) “blood queen” “defensive stance”

I don’t recommend actually DPSing in Defensive Stance, but right before her fears, this isn’t a horrible idea.  My melee officer (gnome warrior/football extraordinaire) used to swap to Defensive Stance on Archimonde to lessen damage from various things.

4) 3.3 pally prot specs

My spec is weird. It’s primarily for heroic dungeons and I use Seal of Command for the extra AOE threat. I don’t really have mana issues, so I only have 1/2 in Spiritual Attunement and I have run speed to boots, so I skip out on Pursuit of Justice. (Also because I used to tease my gnome warrior that his pally was specced for “running faster” and even though it’s a viable talent now, it still feels wrong!)

Here’s what Rohan at Blessing of Kings suggests. And here’s the appropriate thread at MainTankadin.

5) 4 piece bonus tier 8 or 9 holy paladin

The only tier bonus you should be going for, in terms of PVE, at the moment is the 2pc T10 bonus, which is this.

If you can’t access T10, stick to 4pc T9 or break up your T9 if you find better non-set pieces. That said, I think the 4pc T9 bonus is much stronger than the 4pc T8.

6) darkmoon card greatness druid tank

I think there are probably (probably!) better tanking trinkets out there.  What I’ve got these days are these two: The Black Heart (mmmm, stam and a proccing armor buff? Awesome!) and Glyph of Indomitability because of the extra armor (which means I’m less squishy) and an awesome on-use for those “holy CRAP!” moments. Also of note, Essence of Gossamer, which will, no doubt, be ninjaed from you by a hunter if it drops. Right, Maj? ;D (Did I mention I got the drop the other day? ’cause I did.)

7) dbm divine plea macro

I don’t use this, since I use OmniCC for my ability timers (and clcbpt for my paladin-specific buff timers like Sacred Shield, etc), but I imagine it’s:

/cast Divine Plea
/dbm timer 60 Divine Plea is now available!

Of course, you can add this in:

/cast Divine Illumination
/cast Divine Plea
/dbm timer 60 Divine Plea is now available!

Or even:

/use Talisman of Resurgence
/cast Divine Plea
/dbm timer 60 Divine Plea is now available!

8) does blessing of protection remove buffet on sindragosa

Okay, first of all, much love to an obviously old-school pally who still calls it Blessing of Protection instead of Hand of Protection. Second of all, sadly, no. Mystic Buffet is a non-dispellable magic effect that will only drop off if you’re out of line of sight of Sindragosa. Even Divine Shield doesn’t drop it.

[23:35:23.675] Madrana casts Divine Shield
[23:35:25.826] Madrana afflicted by Mystic Buffet (4) from Sindragosa
[23:35:31.989] Madrana afflicted by Mystic Buffet (5) from Sindragosa
[23:35:35.719] Madrana’s Divine Shield fades

BOP will only stop physical damage, but not damage from any school of magic.

9) does prayer of fortitue stack with runescroll of fortitude

Nope. Runescroll of Fortitude, Drums of Forgotten Kings and Drums of the Wild were all introduced so that 10-man raids wouldn’t be overly gimped by not having a priest, paladin or druid in them. The Runescroll is equivalent to level 80, unimproved Fortitude. Drums of the Wild is equivalent to level 80, untalented Gift of the Wild. And because there are no longer any talents to get Blessing of Kings, the drums are just slightly less effective, granting 8% to all stats instead of 10%.

No joke, with two paladins in the raids of late, my guild has been relying on the kings drums.  I buff kings on warriors, rogues, DKs and wisdom on everyone else. The ret pally does might on everyone except for kings on priests, mages and warlocks. Then I hit the drums so that anyone without 10% kings gets at least 8% kings. So everyone has either good kings and good might or good wisdom or so-so kings and good wisdom/good might.

10) spell effect name for needle encrusted scorpion proc

That would be Fatal Flaws. Looks just like a hunter’s Rapid Killing.

And that’s it for the last week’s worth of searches that led people here.

If you have a question, feel free to leave a comment or shoot me an email at kurn [at] apotheosis-now [dot] com. :)