Fixing SotC

From my post on the WoW Suggestion Forums.

Now, SotC is one of the most cast seals a Paladin has, but only for 2 reasons:
1) leveling weapon skills
2) immediate judgment
Now, what's missing here? There is basically no reason to actually let the Seal run it's course in actual play (not counting raising weapon skills). Every other Seal has some value in a real fight. Some are obviously more useful that others (I'll almost always choose SoR over SoJ), but there are situations where they are useful. In addition to each Seal having uses both as a Seal and a Judgment, each of a Paladins roles should have Seals that are useful for it. Tankadins have SoR and SoV and Retadins have SoC and SoB. Again, you'll notice that I omitted somthing: Healadins. They certain could use SoW if they are melee-healing, but I see a real opportunity for SotC.

JotC gives the Paladin a certain amount of +Holy damage to that target, what I would propose is that SotC give the Paladin half of that amount as +healing/damage. You could keep the increased melee attack speed, as the two benefits wouldn't really overlap much. If you're taking advantage of the +healing/damage you're unlikely to be concerned about attack speed and if you focus on attack speed you're unlikely to be too focused on the +healing/damage. What would happen is that a casting focused Holyadin would be able to keep SotC on themselves to augment their healing. Obviously the mechanic I propose would need to be tweaked to make it mana-efficient (not sure if that that value is enough to make it a cost effective endeavor), but I think if done correctly (aka, the +healing/damage amount is enough to not only offset the cost of the seal, but actually making it's use a step towards increased efficiency), it could be very useful.

Not sure if anyone will every see it, but I thought it was a good idea :P

Fame or Infamy?

Thomas mentioned a few of my posts regarding lowbie Paladin tanking, I'm glad to see others finding it useful as it's honestly been a blast for me to play. Only reason I'm posting is that his blog won't let me post a comment (keeps telling me I need to be logged into submit a comment). Anyway, two corrections: Zydari is Draenei, not a Blood Elf (though I do have a Blood Elf Paladin just for humor value), and my main is a Rogue, not a Druid. Though I often wish she was a druid, particularly with the love they've seen post-2.0...

Lowbie Pally Tanking

So, my WoW for the last week has almost exclusively been on Zydari, my Paladin. He dinged 22 last night and he really is fun to play. Level 20 brought me Consecration which makes my job so much easier. AoE threat is great and coupled with Retribution Aura makes it nearly impossible for me to lose aggro.

I did a test last night on Retribution Aura. Had my wife body pull a mob while I had RA up. The damage being dealt by the aura did not pull the mob back onto me, so I conclude that it generates hate from the person being hit, not the person who casts the Aura. While this does lessen the skill's worth a bit, it's not enough for me not to use it. My tanking routine generally consists of my wife pulling from behind me, as the mobs I approach I use RD on her to get them onto me then immediately open up with a Consecration. Now the mobs are receiving damage from Consecration, attacking me which generates damage from my Retribution Aura, proccing Redoubt which ups my block rate a lot and means they'll get damaged from my Shield Spike. All that damage, except the Shield Spike, is Holy and as such generating much more threat through Improved Righteousness. So, even though if in the rare event that my wife pulls aggro off me she'd be getting more from being hit, RD is enough to get them back onto me.

I spent several hours yesterday dual-boxing with my wifes toon. I set up some macros for here to auto-follow and target me. One to cast Lightning Bolt on my target, one to stomp totems, and one to heal me. Worked very well and I was able to very quickly get through a level and work on some preliminary AoE tanking (preliminary only as I don't have Blessing of Sanctuary/Reckoning/Holy Shield). Was a lot of fun and with mobs ~2-3 levels lower than me I could easily take 3 on with my wife's toon providing the occasional heal. I think that with her actually playing and being able to pay full attention to one toon we could do three equal level mobs at once. With the AoE/reflective threat I generate, she should be able to drop the Fire Nova Totem whenever it's available to quickly burn down groups. Good fun.

One thing that has surprised me in the last week is my complete and utter disinterest with my main, Sakuran. She's been sitting at 63 for over a week now. I think that part of my disinterest stems from how much more fun I have playing with my wife, and as she's been playing a lot more lately, I find myself playing solo much less. Additionally I think that learning new mechanics and play styles is a lot of what I enjoy about the game. Yes, DPS will always have a spot in my heart, but there is something appealing to playing a tank and not focusing on DPS. I think this is the same reason that I was so stoked about the Druid a month or so ago. It was new and different. I think that with the added bonus of playing with my wife, this Paladin may become a much more regular toon for me.

The guild forum has been acting up a great deal and our Guild Master has been out of town. Stupid thing won't let me delete posts unless I do them one by one (which is not going to happen). I'm hoping that the newer forum software will end up being more reliable and allow me (as one of the forum admins) to actually do some adminning with out it being such an irksome task.

Pal-a-din > Puh-la-din

So, last night Zydari, my Draenei Paladin, dinged 17. I've been reading up a lot on Paladin strategies, particularly with the focus on tanking. My only other tanking attempts are with my Warrior Daroul (level 26) who's only real experience was one Stockades run (which I posted on back in...October I think), and Didgeridoo my Tauren Shaman who tanked Ragefire Chasm at level 18 (back when Rockbiter and Earthshock still had +threat).

Needless to say I've done a lot more tanking with toon than with either of the afore-mentioned ones. This guys is exclusively leveling with my wife's Shaman, Zydaria, so is basically tanking full time. Prior to level 14 I'd keep Devotion Aura and Blessing of Might up, judge Crusader, Seal of Righteousness and hope that we'd kill it before my wifes DPS pulled the mob onto her (she's a bit trigger happy). Level 14 gave me Righteous Defense, the three-mob Paladin taunt. It's wonderful, much better that the Bear/Warrior Taunt IMHO. It is different to use though, as you target a friendly player and force mobs attacking them to instead attack me, rather than directly targeting the mob. Could be tricky, but the following macro works wonders:

/cast [target=targettarget,help] Righteous Defense, [target=none] Righteous Defense

I simply hit the macro whenever I don't have aggro. If it's because my wife pulled aggro I just get them back on me. If it's because my wife picked up an add, I get the glowy hand (because the target of my target is me, it passes onto the second condition) and click her party frame.

Level 16 gave me two new skills that have helped my tanking. Righteous Fury increase all threat from my Holy damage by 60%. As a significant amount of what I try to do is Holy damage, this is quite the buff. Additionally I picked up Retribution Aura, which deals 5 Holy damage to anyone who attacks someone in my party. Now, I'm not quite sold on this ability. If I have aggro, it's great. They're getting 5 Holy damage (for 8 threat) every time they deal damage, may not look like much, but it adds up fast. Where I'm confused is how the threat is applied if the damage stems from a mob hitting someone else in the party. My thinking, and what I've read a few places, is that it is my aura that is dealing the damage, thus I'm getting the hate regardless of who the mob is hitting. But, a high level paladin in my guild doesn't think that is the case. More investigation is needed, but for now this is my default tanking aura.

Next level (18) I'll be getting Blessing of Freedom (situational), a new rank of Seal of Righteousness (yeah!), and Spiritual Attunement. That last spell is what I'm most excited about, 8% mana from any healing from an outside source may not seem like much, but I'm always grouped with a healer. Any healing she does on me simply increased the amount of damage I can deal. I'm sure it will be more useful as time goes on and the return gets into the double digits, but I will certainly have a reason to not be healing myself :P

Level 20 will give me Consecration, which should cement my ability to tank multiple mobs. That, coupled with Retribution Aura, should be loads of fun. Get my wife to drop some AoE fire totems and we should be able to do a lot of damage, real fast.

Looking down the levels I imagine that I'll continue to use the JotC/SoR combination (with JoR when ever its up). Seems like the best way to maintain threat and deal damage. Obviously other Seals/Judgments will have situational use, but that should remain my default. Looks like at 64 Seal of Vengeance will replace Seal of Righteousness as my default. I'm just tickled at the prospect, though level 64 is barley on the horizon.

My current spec (0/8/0), at 20 (0/11/0), 30 (0/21/0), 40 (0/31/0), 50 (0/41/0), 60 (0/41/10), and 70 (0/44/17).

Altism

Kinless coined (to my knowledge) the term 'Altism' in a recent post of his. I think the term is appropriate, and I think I'm suffering from it as well. I'm just not in a hurry to get to 70. Sakuran is still sitting at 62, though she'll likely hit 63 tonight. I've certainly spent more time on my alts since my last post.

Repentant - 40 Priest
I managed to finally ding 40 with Repentant. I'd stopped soloing with him at 38 so I could have available to group with guild mates. Last week weekend we did a partial Uldaman run and worked on the elites in Stomgaurd. Dinged 40 halfway through there and promptly fell in love with Shadow Form. It certainly is nice to be able to farm with a rogue and a cat-form druid, keep everyone's health up with VE and compete with the rogue for top DPS. Having read about the rediculous amount of DPS Shadow Priests are putting out in endgame content I'm fairly certain that Repentant will never spec out of shadow. Oh, and I bought a horse. Is it just me, or are human mounts just 'meh'?

Laic - 51 Hunter
Haven't dinged on him in a while, but have started the Marhsall Windsor chain in BS and will eventually get in BRD for some fun. The more I play him, the less I like his build. He's currently 0/11/31, and I'm just not liking it. Don't get wrong, I love Wyvern Sting and Counterattack, but I'm not sure those two abilities justify the 29 other points I'm putting in the tree. Who knows...

It's interesting with the new BC items that are out there, I really find myself anticipating level 58. See, Laic will not be spending any time in the old end-game content, like Sakuran did. He'll ding 58 and say goodbye to Azeroth. I curious to see how much more of a difference replacing my gear will make with Laic. Sakuran replaced almost everything within two levels of hitting Hellfire Peninsula. I imagine Laic will just have a blast.

Sakuran -62 Rogue
I respecced Sakuran, again. I kept my primary tree pretty much the same, just swapped minor trees. She's now 0/11/42 which is the only build I've ever tried without points in Assassination. Lightning Reflexes is a fairly unpopular talent, but let me tell you why I picked it. Improved Gouge is nice for solo PvP, but I don't do that. I play on a PvE server and decline duos, only PvP I see is the BG's and perhaps a little arena at 70. In those venues it's unlikely that my gouge will last that long anyways as there's 9-39 other people out there who could be hitting my target. Improved Sinister Strike is great if you're using Sinister Strike. I actually spent some time wondering if it would make sense to drop two points there and forsake Hemo. My conclusion is that without 3/3 Aggression, Sinister Strike just doesn't do enough more damage to be worth while. I love having Riposte back, it's arguably my favorite talent point in the combat tree. Best damage per energy of any rogue attack plus the disarm.

With the additional 5% parry and 5% dodge, I'm looking at 45% mitigation before my armor kicks in. With Ghostly Strike I can increase that to 60% for 7 seconds out of every 20. With Evasion and Prep that can increase by 50% for 30 seconds.

My target build of 5/13/43 will put Vanish, Sprint, and Evasion on 3 minute cooldowns and Blind on a 1.5 minute cooldown. I think that the sheer amount of utility I will bring to the table will allow me to dictate the pace of most any fight I find myself in, PvE or PvP.