All paladins auras had their range extended from 30 yards to 40 yards.
Holy

• Sacred Shield now cannot be on more than one target at any one time.
• Infusion of Light no longer has a chance to reduce the casting time of Holy Light, but increases the the critical chance of your next Holy Light by 10/20% instead.

Protection

• Hand of Sacrifice now lasts 12 sec or until the caster has transfered 100% of their maximum health.
• Targets affected by Divine Shield, Hand of Protection or Divine Protection can no longer be affected by any of these spell for 2 minutes. (Down from 3 minutes)
• Divine Sacrifice *New Talent* (Tier 3) – 30% of all damage taken by party or raid members within 30 yards is redirected to the Paladin (up to a maximum of 150% of the Paladin’s health). Instant, 2 min cooldown.

Edit: There is a badass new tanking enchant coming down the pike as well -

Enchanting

• Enchant Weapon – Blade Ward *New Enchant* – Permanently enchants a weapon to sometimes grant Blade Warding when striking an enemy. Blade Warding increases your parry rating by 200 and inflicts 600 to 800 damage on your next parry. Effect can stack up to 5 times and lasts 10 sec. This enchantment requires the wielder is at least level 75.

© petewood for my everything else blog..., 2009. | Permalink
Post tags: 3.1, buff, holy, nerf, pally, prot

Protection

• Divine Protection: Cooldown reduced to 3 min.

The current CD is 5 minutes! This can be talented down to (2 points in Sacred Duty) 4 minutes but down to 3 and I’m assuming talented, it will be down to two minutes? That’s a HUGE change and very welcome!

© petewood for my everything else blog..., 2009. | Permalink
Post tags: 3.1, buff, pally

Enchants

Head

1. Arcanum of the Stalwart Protector revered with Argent Crusade

Shoulders

1. Greater Inscription of the Pinnacle exalted with Son’s of Hodir

Legs

1. Frosthide Leg Armor 55 stam, 22 agi; LW, easy mats if none are in ah

Feet

1. Tuskarr’s Vitality 15 stam, minor run speed increase; The loss of 7 stam is very minor but the run speed increase may come in handy on some fights
2. Enchant Boots – Greater Fortitude 22 stam; 3 lesser cosmic essence, 3 infinite dust

Weapon

1. Enchant Weapon – Potency 20 strength, increase shield block value by 10 (via modifiers), BC enchant; this is my personal choice
2. Titanium Weapon Chain 28 hit rating, reduces the length of disarm effects by 50%

Shield

1. Enchant Shield – Defense 20 def, 6 Infinite Dust and 6 Eternal Earth
2. Titanium Plating 40 shield block value, from blacksmiths

Waist

1. Eternal Belt Buckle buy in AH, put a blue gem 24 stam gem in

Wrist

1. Enchant Bracer – Major Stamina 40 stam; 4 greater cosmic essence, 1 abyss crystal

Hands

1. Enchant Gloves – Armsman 2% increased threat, 10 parry;  my personal choice
2. Enchant Gloves – Expertise 20 expertise, 20 infinite dust, 2 greater cosmic essence

Chest

1. Enchant Chest – Greater Defense 22 defense to chest, 10 infinite dust, 1 eternal earth
2. Enchant Chest – Powerful Stats 10 to all stats, expensive mats (15 infinite dust, 4 abyss crystals)
3. Enchant Chest – Super Stats 8 to all stats, relatively inexpensive (4 infinite dust, 2 lesser cosmic essence)

Back

1. Enchant Cloak – Titanweave 16 def, 2 titanium bars, 2 dream shards, 8 infinite dust

Gems

Blue (green, purple)

1. Solid Sky Sapphire 24 stam

Red (orange, purple)

1. Champion’s Monarch Topaz 8 def, 8 str
2. Sovereign Twilight Opal 8 str, 12 stam

Yellow (orange, green)

1. Thick Autumn’s Glow 16 def
2. Enduring Forest Emerald 8 def, 12 stam

Prismatic

1. Solid Dragon’s Eye JC only, +41 stam
2. Enchanted Tear 6 all stats; unique equipped

Meta

1. Austere Earthsiege Diamond 32 stam, 2% inc armor value; my personal choice
2. Eternal Earthsiege Diamond 21 def, 5% shield block value

© petewood for my everything else blog..., 2009. | Permalink
Post tags: enchants, gems, pally, prot, tank

• Blessing of Kings – this spell is now a base ability trainable by all paladins.

Blessing of Kings being a baseline talent is AWESOME. This is something the pally community has been raving about for ages.

• Exorcism – this spell now causes damage to all types of enemy targets. However, it always critical strikes undead or demon targets. This change should make sure paladin damage doesn’t drop when going from Naxxramas to later tiers of content.

Exorcism being used in my normal rotation? Currently, Exorcism only works on the undead. I think I’ll need more mana for that!

• Shield of the Templar now causes your Avenger’s Shield and Shield of the Righteousness to silence targets for 3 sec. The old damage bonus of this talent has been folded into Holy Shield, Avenger’s Shield, and Shield of the Righteousness.

Shield of the Templar causing Avengers Shield AND Shield of the Righteous to cause a 3s silence? That sounds OP to me, even if it is prot pally only.  My guess is that the CD on SotR will be increased a bit.

• Ardent Defender, Improved Hammer of Justice, One-Handed Weapon Specialization and more have had their ranks reduced.

Very nice change. My 5/58/8 (or the most popular 5/60/6) will have at least 9 talent points freed up (giving back 5 from kings and 4/5 from the 2H weapon specialization). Will the tree be given MORE bloat or will prot pally’s be able dabble more in the ret tree for some added damage (and therefore threat)?

• Guarded by the Light – no longer reduces the mana cost of shield spells, but now has a 50/100% chance to refresh Divine Plea duration.

So now there is a 100% chance to keep Divine Plea going every time I hit someone/something with my shield? Why do prot pally’s need spiritual attunement anymore?!

• Judgements of the Just – now also reduces the cooldown of Hammer of Justice by 10/20 seconds and increases the duration of the Seal of Justice stun effect by 0.5/1 second.

This drops the CD of Hammer of Justice to 30seconds in itself, but there is another talent in the prot tree that further reduces the HoJ cooldown by 30s (for 3 talent points – but, with 3.1, will be only 1 talent point). This effectively gives pallys a 10second interrupt/stun. This seems overpowered (especially in PvP) to me and leaves me wondering what kind of nerfs HoJ will receive.

The only other change mentioned regarding pally’s is a huge nerf to Divine Plea. It’s impact on healing is being increase from a 20% reduction to 50%. The duration and cooldown remain the same however (source).

• Since paladins rely less on Spirit as a mana-regeneration stat, we have to address them in other ways. We don’t want to change Illumination or Replenishment. However, we are going to increase the healing penalty on Divine Plea from 20% to 50%. Divine Plea was originally intended to help Protection and Retribution paladins stay full on mana. It should be a decision for Holy paladins, not something that is automatically used every cooldown.
• In addition, we are also changing the way Spiritual Attunement works. In situations with a large amount of outgoing raid damage, as well as in PvP, this passive ability was responsible for more mana regeneration than we would like. We want to keep the necessary benefit it grants to tanking Protection paladins, while making it less powerful for Holy paladins in PvP or raid encounters with a lot of group damage.

© petewood for my everything else blog..., 2009. | Permalink
Post tags: 3.1, buff, nerf, pally, prot, protection

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

I have a very decent set of tanking gear (including the Bolstered Legplates from Heroic Violet Hold). I just got the 16 expertise JC pattern,  the Precise Scarlet Ruby and I have enough JC buy the 41stam Dragon’s Eye pattern, the Solid Dragon’s Eye. I can make the stamina oriented trinkets as well.

Right now, my biggest problem with my tanking gear is that I was still under 20k health! Now that I have my JC up and can make all those wonderful things, my health should be fine.

My defense might suffer a bit since I’ll have to drop my two BC defense trinkets (Dabiri’s Enigma and  Adamantine Figurine) but I have the Argent Dawn head enchant (Arcanum of the Stalwart Protector) and the Son’s of Hodir shoulder enchant (Greater Inscription of the Pinnacle) to help make up for it. I can also put on some defense enchants/gems if I fall below the 535 defense rating required for being uncrittable by Heroic bosses – level 82. You need a 540 defense rating is required to be uncritabble by raid bosses – level 83.

My most immediate gear goal will be a tanking weapon. Right now, I have the Warsong Punisher, which has very little stam (36) and some dodge (and no defense rating). My immediate choices are from running heroic Utgarde Keep (which is ultra easy) or from the last boss of heroic Utgarde Pinnacle (which I’ve run once – as ret, got to the last boss and proceeded to wipe over and over again). From H UK, I can get the Infantry Assault Blade. From H UP, I can get the Red Sword of Courage.

In regards to the focus of this blog, I’ll still be talking/posting about being ret, but will post more and more about being prot specced in the future.

© petewood for my everything else blog..., 2009. | Permalink
Post tags: dual spec, jewelcrafting, pally, prot, ret, staminna, Tanking

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

During the transition from patch 2.4.3 to 3.0.3 the following talents were not unlearned properly by some players, resulting in those players still gaining the benefits despite the talents no longer existing in the talent trees. As a result, we’ve pushed a hotfix which has corrected this matter and affected players will longer receive credit for having these talents.

Warlock: Improved Lash of Pain
Warlock: Fel Stamina
Shaman: Totemic Mastery
Shaman: Improved Lightning Shield (Rank 3)
Paladin: Precision
Rogue: Fist Weapon Specialization
Priest: Shadow Focus (Ranks 4 and 5)

If you were lucky enough to have the ghost hit, it’s time to re-gem your gear I think!

© petewood for my everything else blog..., 2009. | Permalink
Post tags: ghost hit, pally, precision

It started out with a very fast run through regular Halls of Lightning (HoL). I got two very good dps upgrades, hands (Fists of Loken) and shoulders (Pauldrons of the Lightning Revenant).

The tank asked if we’d like to get some easy Emblems of Heroism. He said it was one of the simplest heroic instances in the game. I figured why not, I’ve gotten some decent gear and I’m dps is pretty high (IMO). Since my two new items had gem slots, I asked if they would summon me after I went to Orgrimmar to get some gems for them and they agreed, so off I went! Since the items were only blues, I didn’t want to put any really good gems in them, so I settled for some uncommon (green) gems, Perfect Inscribed Huge Citrine for the gloves and Bold Bloodstone for the shoulders.

We finally zone into heroic Utgarde Keep and the entire instance ran was very smooth (and simple). We finished in about 30 or 40 minutes, which is fantastic for a heroic. I remember heroics from the last expansion taking between 60 and 90 minutes. We downed the final boss in UK (Ingvar the Plunderer)  and he drops some epic plate legs, the Staggering Legplates! There are three plate wearers in the group (me, the tank and a dps death knight) who all rolled need on them and I won them! My first heroic and I’m walking out of here with some badass pants!! Woot! I went back to the auction house in Org and bought an epic leg armor kit, Icescale Leg Armor and a couple of new gems for them, Perfect Bold Bloodstone and Perfect Inscribed Huge Citrine.

I got achievements for my first Emblem of Heroism and also for completing Heroic Utgarde Keep.

I also ran Heroic Violet Hold with another group and got a couple more achievements, Defenseless and Heroic: The Violet Hold. That run went very smooth, despite my low weapon skill in maces, but I had to keep using my new Titansteel Destroyer. I believe I started the instance doing 1200 dps (weapon skill was 350/400). By the end of the instance, my weapon skill only rose to 385!

Last night, I ran the same two heroics again, both with different groups. I didn’t receive any new gear upgrades but I was gaining rep and getting some more Emblems. Now that I’m comfortable doing heroics (and now am farming Emblems of Heroism), I need to update my gear wish list to include heroic instances!

© petewood for my everything else blog..., 2008. | Permalink
Post tags: drop, heroic, pally, ret, utgarde keep, violet hold

This is awesome news for all paladins!

© petewood for my everything else blog..., 2008. | Permalink
Post tags: bug, fix, judgement, pally