© petewood for my everything else blog..., 2009. | Permalink
Post tags: 3.0.8, boe, drop, jewelcrafting, professions, world

I added a Solid Sky Sapphire gem and a Solid Dragon’s Eye gem to it and with the stam bonus, received an extra 137 stam from that trinket alone! Right now, I have 24,544 health. These numbers are based on the rules of 3.0.3.

Health Pool

Since 3.0.8 was [finally] released today, I get a few buffs to my gear. For my tanking helm, I currently have the Tempered Titansteel Helm.

3.0.3 helm stats

In this patch, this helm gets a new blue gem slot AND a meta gem slot. The blue gem will be filled with a Solid Sky Sapphire gem and the meta gem will be filled with a Austere Earthsiege Diamond. These two gems will give me 56 more stamina, for an additional 560 health.

3.0.8 helm stats

Also in 3.0.8 is a new bracer enchant that gives 40 stamina. So now I’m up to 96 more stamina or 960 health.

3.0.8 bracer stam enchant

Yet another change for prot pally tanks is that the prot talent Sacred Duty now gives 8% stamina (up from 6%). I don’t know the exact number that works out to in my current gear but I’m sure it will be enough to give me over 100 extra stamina (or 1,000 extra health).

All of these stamina increases will put me over 25.5k health, unbuffed! Whatever problems I had with my health pool are now over. I feel very good with the amount of health I have for tanking heroics.

© petewood for my everything else blog..., 2009. | Permalink
Post tags: 3.0.8, enchants, gear, gems, heroics, jewelcrafting, pally, prot, stamina, Tanking, tempered titansteel helm

Original:

75 stam enchant - courtesy of worldofraids.com

Nerfed version:

50 stam enchant - courtesy of worldofraids.com

This was talked about on tankspot.com as well.

In ret paladin related news, Vengeance was buffed from stacking 3 times (for 9% extra damage) to stacking 5 times (for 15% extra damage). That buff has been removed. Vengeance will still work the same as it does currently on live. Too bad, more damage is good. It’s always nice to see huge Judgement crits!

© petewood for my everything else blog..., 2009. | Permalink
Post tags: 3.0.8, enchant, Paladin Blogs, ptr, ret, stamina

A LOT of people told me that I was stupid for doing that. Some pointed out that I should have waited until I accrued enough money to level JC from 1-375 in one day. I can agree with that last statement, I probably should have waited.

But I was excited about jewelcrafting! The exciting part for me is the JC only gems and trinkets. Being a ret pally, I was very excited about equipping the +27 strength gem (Bold Dragon’s Eye). When I go holy, I’ll very excited about the +27 int (Brilliant Dragon’s Eye) and +32 spell power gems (Runed Dragon’s Eye). If I ever go prot again, I’ll be even more ecstatic about the stam bonus from equipping the JC only trinkets and slapping on some +41stam (Solid Dragon’s Eye) and +27 defense (Thick Dragon’s Eye) and +27expertiese (Precise Dragon’s Eye) gems.

The excitement faded though. I spent a lot of gold leveling it from 1-285. I got stuck at 285 for a long time because I was being pig headed about buying the Azerothian Diamonds off of the AH for 25g. I needed a bunch and didn’t have the funds to support it, mostly because of all of the gear upgrades that I was getting from running heroics needed to be gemmed and enchanted. I am unable to complete a bunch of dailys due to having a wife and two kids, both under 5 and one is only 9 months old.

Since I was stuck at 285 for so long, JC became a major drag for me. I took a few days off from running heroics and started questing again. I amassed a small fortune in gold and off to the AH I went, buying the Azerothian Diamonds and the Huge Emeralds that I needed. Now that I was over that hump, I started to get excited again! I had a few green gems saved up from back in BC.

I used those gems to get me to where I am now, happily sitting at 337. The next milestone for my JC is 350. At 350375 (see update below), I can begin doing the JC dailys and start buying the Dragon’s Eye raw gems from the NPC in Dalaran, Tiffany Courtier. As of patch 3.0.3 (current version of the game as of this writing), I have to wait until my JC is at 375 to begin using the Dragon’s Eye gems. When patch 3.0.8 is finally released, I can begin using the Dragon’s Eye gems when I get JC to 350!

3.0.8 is turning out to be a nice patch (read: buff) for my ret pally!

Update: Your JC skill has to be 375 in order to start the JC daily. I learned that the hard/disappointed way this morning. I have my JC up to 350, but now I need 375…unless the patch is released today while I’m at work!

© petewood for my everything else blog..., 2009. | Permalink
Post tags: 3.0.8, dailys, dragon's eye, gems, jc, jewelcrafting, pally, patch

The old, 3.0.3 version looks like this:

AP: str 113 => 259.9 AP (str x 2.3)
Crit: 66 => 1.27% crit (agi/52.08, it takes 52.08 agi to give you 1% crit)

The 3.0.8 version looks like this, (image courtesy of WorldOfRaids.com):

AP, JC pally:  97str+27str (from JC gem, see below) = 124str  => 285.2 AP (str x 2.3)
AP, non-JC pally:  97str+8str (from Soverign Twilight Opal) = 105str  => 241.5 AP (str x 2.3)
Crit: Crit Rating 52 => 1.13% crit

Overall effect of change (for JC pallys) = +25.3 AP, -0.10% Crit
Overall effect of change (for non-JC pallys) = -18.4 AP, -0.10% Crit

The nice part of the change is that there is now a blue socket in the helm. That will help my pally by freeing up the gem slot that I added with the Eternal Belt Buckle. Currently, I have a blue gem in there, the Perfect Sovereign Shadow Crystal. I will be able to move that gem from my belt buckle to the helm and replace it with either the Bold Scarlet Ruby (+16 str, blue quality gem) or the Perfect Bold Bloodstone (+14 str, green quality gem, perfect cut). Eventually, when my JC is high enough, I’ll probably just drop a Bold Dragons Eye (+27 str, prismatic) so that I can make the most of this helm.

This is going to be a major buff for my attack power but a slight nerf to crit rating.  Overall, I’m calling this a buff, for pallys who happen to be jewelcrafters and a nerf for non-JC pallys.

© petewood for my everything else blog..., 2009. | Permalink
Post tags: 3.0.8, gear, math, patch, spiked titansteel helm, titansteel

Judgement bug fixed
Okay, we think we have been able to isolate this bug and put in a fix that prevents Judgements from failing any longer. Assuming a little more testing supports this conclusion we plan on hotfixing this.

Sorry you had to endure it for so long. (Source)

In case you didn’t know about the bug, here is what was happening. Sometimes, when casting judgement of *wisdom/light/justice*, the judgement would “fail”. By fail, I mean that no damage was caused to the mob and they would not receive the debuff but the CD on the spell would begin and the mana was consumed. If the pally was ret, the failed judgement meant that there was no mana returned (via Judgements of the Wise) and replenishment does not start ticking.

Hopefully, this bug is gone.

© petewood for my everything else blog..., 2008. | Permalink
Post tags: 3.0.8, bug, fixed, judgement, patch

I did a little searching online and found a very helpful post over at tankspot.com titled “Uncrittable from crafting and rep only“. Following that guide to fill out the pieces I needed, I got to 535 defense easily.

I was looking up the new titansteel stuff on wowhead.com and noticed that the mats for the Titansteel Shield Wall were relatively cheap. I had that crafted by a guildy and that pushed my defense to 541.

My only issue now is my health. Currently, my health sits at 18,400. I could gain a lot of health by enchanting my gear so that will be my next goal for my prot gear.

The Titansteel Shield Wall was my first WotLK epic.

I was only able to do one instance run as prot since our server seems to be suffering from a major lack of healers, which is why I’ll sadly be dropping my new prot spec (and all my new awesome gear) and eventually going holy.

I’ll go back to ret and try to get into heroic or regular instance groups as dps. When dual specs are implemented, I’ll go ret and holy so that I can solo and still fill out an instance group, when needed.

With the new glyphs on the PTR (patch 3.0.8), healing as holy should get a bit easier. The Glyph of Holy Light will now heal everybody by 10% within 20 yards (up from 5 yards). The new Glyph of Flash of Light now increases the crit chance of the Flash of Light by 5% (changed from “Your Flash of Light heals for 50% less initially, but also heals for 140% of its initial effect over 12 sec”).

© petewood for my everything else blog..., 2008. | Permalink
Post tags: 3.0.8, dual spec, holy, pally, prot, respec, ret, titansteel, uncrittable