WoW.com

The Light and How to Swing It: A little less hybrid

Gregg Reece — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 20:00:00 EST

Filed under: Paladin, (Paladin) The Light and How to Swing It

With the Light as his strength, Gregg Reece of The Light and How to Swing It faces down the demons of the Burning Legion, the undead of the Scourge, and helps with the puppet shows at the Argent Ren Faire up in Icecrown.

Ghostcrawler has been doing a lot of talking pertaining to paladins and Blizzard's vision of them for the future. A lot of this has been spawned by some of the changes the developers have been toying around with on the public test realms. In the current build of the PTR, Lay on Hands causes Forbearance on its target which has prompted quite an uproar from the playerbase. This cuts a leg out from our two major defensive cooldowns making us choose either health or invulnerability during a fight. Holy paladins are getting some text tacked onto Sanctified Light which will allow them to reduce the chance it will cause Forbearance on others by 33/66/100% to allow it to still be useful when healing in groups. As this is the PTR, we don't really know how much of this will end up on the live realms. The developers have been toying around with several different ideas and at the moment we're not sure which one or ones they'll end up going with.

Continue reading The Light and How to Swing It: A little less hybrid

The Light and How to Swing It: A little less hybrid originally appeared on WoW.com on Sat, 07 Nov 2009 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

The argument for paladin stances

Mike Schramm — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 22:00:00 EST

Filed under: Paladin, Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Raiding, Classes, Buffs

Righteous Defense lays out an intriguing argument for an idea that I still personally can't get behind: paladin stances. The recent changes around patch 3.3 have shined a light on paladin versatility, and basically, paladins are forced to pay the hybrid tax three times over -- because they can do it all without limiting themselves, they can't do anything as well as other classes. So RD makes the suggestion: instead of letting paladins have all of their spells under any aura, it's time to narrow things down a bit. Devotion Aura becomes tanking stance, gets Righteous Fury's threat bonus added to it, and enabling it makes pallies lose some other abilities (Avenger's Shield is RD's suggestion). Retribution Aura becomes a DPS "stance," with added benefits and costs, and so on. By forcing paladins into a playstyle, you can give them extra power, because you've taken away versatility.

Unfortunately for those in favor, I don't think it'll ever happen. First of all, we already have a class in the game that uses stances, and I think that this type of gameplay is too close for Blizzard's comfort to implement in the same way on paladins -- they want the classes to play different. Second, the paladin class design has always focused on the versatility of being a hybrid. While paladins may want to limit themselves to see buffs, Blizzard has never shown an inclination to limit pallies' versatility just to make them more powerful. I like the idea of Righteous Fury's buff getting linked up to something else (it definitely seems like it's out there on its own as an arbitrary tanking buff), but paladins getting a fully implemented stance system doesn't seem likely at all.

The argument for paladin stances originally appeared on WoW.com on Fri, 06 Nov 2009 22:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Blood Sport: Patch 3.3, part II

C. Christian Moore — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:00:00 EST

Filed under: Hunter, Mage, Paladin, Patches, Items, Analysis / Opinion, News items, PvP, Features, Wrath of the Lich King, (Arena PvP) Blood Sport, Battlegrounds, Arena

Want to crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their women? Blood Sport investigates the entirety of all-things arena for gladiators and challengers alike. C. Christian Moore, multiple rank 1 gladiator, examines the latest arena strategy, trends, compositions and more in WoW.com's arena column.

David Byrne and The Talking Heads are a personal favorite. Miles Fisher seems to love them as well. His cover of This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody) is homage to one of the most beautiful, striking melodies I've ever heard, and as such, it will be your listening music for the day. (NSFW Warning: The video is a parody/reenactment of American Psycho, so view carefully.)

Last time, we went over the Will of the Forsaken nerf, 100% pet resilience, death knights, and druids. The patch looks to be a very interesting bag of surprises for arena enthusiasts, we're getting major changes to the way some races work, as well as nearly every class is getting a pretty substantial change or two which will probably help them in PvP. We don't normally see patches where most classes are buffed, but this could be one of them.

Read on to find out what's up with hunters, mages, and paladins in Patch 3.3!

Continue reading Blood Sport: Patch 3.3, part II

Blood Sport: Patch 3.3, part II originally appeared on WoW.com on Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Healer survey contains a wealth of information about healing

Mike Schramm — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 14:00:00 EST

Filed under: Druid, Paladin, Priest, Shaman, Analysis / Opinion, Fan stuff, Virtual selves, Classes, Buffs

If you've ever wanted a close-up look at the game's healing zeitgeist, Miss Medicina has it -- she recently started up a survey/meme of healers around the WoW blogosphere, and the answers are now in and posted on her site. They make for some interesting weekend reading, especially if you're interested in healing and what healers think of it. I'm sure there's lots of conclusions that could be drawn out of this (I'll let you all come up with some in the comments as well), but just reading through them on my own, it seems like there's a few threads between them. The majority of healing seems to be done in 10-mans, which probably isn't too surprising, given that's where most of the endgame players are right now as well. There's no clear winner on class or spec (all four healing classes are represented pretty evenly, though I didn't really crunch the numbers), though there are quite a few priests, and of those, things seem to be split between holy and disc.

In terms of a favorite spell, there's almost no crossover at all -- people are all over the place, from Beacon to Penance to Circle of Healing. To hear these guys tell it, healers have all kinds of fun spells to play with. In terms of a weakness to healing, two main answers appear: mana regeneration (always an issue with mana-heavy classes like healers) and mobility. Shamans and druids have problems with big burst healing, and paladins say they need more group healing strength, but almost everyone mentions either mana or movement. There's a lot more to look through, too, in terms of how healers evaluate their performance and addon recommendations from everyone. As a look inside the healer "scene," there is a ton of information in there about what healers are up to out on the realms.

Healer survey contains a wealth of information about healing originally appeared on WoW.com on Sat, 31 Oct 2009 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Leeroy-related extras on recent DVD releases

Mike Schramm — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:00:00 EST

Filed under: Paladin, Fan stuff, Virtual selves, Odds and ends, Instances, Humor

Recently two different movies have included their own versions of the world famous Leeroy Jenkins video in their DVD extras. Year One is the first -- the video, which you can watch after the link below, isn't a perfect reproduction, but it is funny to see Vinnie Jones and the other actors (including McLovin as Leeroy) try to wrap all of the WoW jargon and nonsense jokes from the original into their idea of a scene that makes sense.

There's another Leeroy Jenkins related extra on the Monsters vs. Aliens DVD -- this one's just a set of storyboards, but it does feature the voice cast, including Kiefer Sutherland and Seth Rogen, doing their own little version of the scene. It's not quite as faithful as the Year One version, but it does feature Rogen doing the Leeroy yell, and that's worth watching by itself. You can watch that video after the break as well.

Both are worth a chuckle -- it's wild to see a meme like Leeroy sneak out into mainstream media.

Continue reading Leeroy-related extras on recent DVD releases

Leeroy-related extras on recent DVD releases originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

The Light and How to Swing It: Divine Sacrifice

Gregg Reece — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:00:00 EST

Filed under: Paladin, (Paladin) The Light and How to Swing It

With the Light as his strength, Gregg Reece of The Light and How to Swing It faces down the demons of the Burning Legion, the undead of the Scourge, and helps with the puppet shows at the Argent Ren Faire up in Icecrown. This week we're going to talk about trying to not take one for the team.

While some of you might be looking at the skill in the title and not know what I'm talking about, we paladins have a nice little talented ability known as Divine Sacrifice. A lot of holy and protection paladins should already know about this cursed little gem. Depending on your spec setup, you might even be aware of it as a retribution paladin. If you're not familiar with the skill, it's sitting on the left in the third tier of the protection tree. Go look, I'll wait.

For those of you that didn't go over to look, it is essentially a raid-wide version of Hand of Sacrifice and often nicknamed the "raid-wall" for its shield-wall-esque capabilities. It allows the casting paladin to take 30% of the damage from every person in the party or the raid for 10 seconds. Luckily, it can be used in combination with Divine Shield so you don't instantly die from all of that incoming damage. Currently, it's a fairly dangerous little skill. With it you can either be savior or martyr of your raid group depending on how you use it.

Continue reading The Light and How to Swing It: Divine Sacrifice

The Light and How to Swing It: Divine Sacrifice originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Patch 3.3 PTR: Ghostcrawler explains Paladin changes

Zach Yonzon — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 07:00:00 EST

Filed under: Paladin, Patches, Analysis / Opinion

You know how it goes. Blizzard nerfs Paladins, Paladins shake their heads in disbelief, then break out the pitchforks and scream bloody murder for a bit, beg Blizzard not to push through with the changes, and eventually run home and cry into My Little Pony sheets and staining pink underwear. Sure enough, when the recent PTR patch notes hinted at nerfs to the Paladin class, the pitchfork-wielding and bloody murder-screaming ensued. We're now about to enter the stage of bargaining. It's still on the PTR, after all. For those wondering what the bed-wetting ruckus is all about, Sacred Shield was nerfed to proc only once every 30 seconds (essentially proccing only once every cast of the spell unless augmented with talents), Aura Mastery was nerfed to 6 seconds down from 10, and Lay on Hands is being primed to be uncastable on one's self.

Ghostcrawler said that he didn't "want to promise (they) won't change the spell for 3.3," but that players also shouldn't "worry too much on the Lay on Hands change at this point" since it didn't make it to the latest PTR build. He explains in the forums that Paladins are no longer just a support class (as they were for quite a long time), but that all the abilities over time have contributed to making the class feel like a "one-man army" that is able to play offensively, defensively, and essentially take on more challenges without having to change stances, forms, or even specs. In a rather snippy response to a troll crying (with My Little Pony blanket in hand) in the forums, Ghostcrawler simply said, "Dear OP, Bye. Hugs, GC."

Continue reading Patch 3.3 PTR: Ghostcrawler explains Paladin changes

Patch 3.3 PTR: Ghostcrawler explains Paladin changes originally appeared on WoW.com on Wed, 28 Oct 2009 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Ghostcrawler and the "hybrid tax"

Mike Schramm — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 16:00:00 EST

Filed under: Druid, Hunter, Mage, Paladin, Priest, Rogue, Shaman, Warlock, Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Virtual selves, Raiding, Classes, Death Knight

Ghostcrawler has put a significant sticky up on the forums about what he calls the "hybrid tax" in terms of PvE play -- there's been some back and forth lately on the forums about hybrid classes and what they should and shouldn't be able to do, and GC wants to put any confusion about what Blizzard intends "hybrids" to be to rest. Very basically, he says that there are three roles in the game (tanking, healing, and DPS), and if a class can respec to perform a different role, it's considered a hybrid class. Otherwise, it's a "pure" class. This means a few things: pure classes, he says, should have slightly higher DPS ("all things being equal," and when does that ever happen?), because they don't have the option to switch out. There's no rule as to how much better that is, but as a tradeoff of rerolling being the only way for "pures" to switch, they get to be a little better. That's the "hybrid tax," and mages, hunters, rogues, and warlocks don't have to pay it.

Hybrids, however, do, and that means that paladins, druids, priests, shamans, and to a certain extent, warriors and death knights, will in Blizzard's view never be able to equal "pure" classes in terms of DPS output, with everything else being equal. You may love your ret pally, and he may be in uber gear, but he should never be able to pour out as much damage as an equally specced and geared hunter, because you can switch to healing, and the hunter can't.

Continue reading Ghostcrawler and the "hybrid tax"

Ghostcrawler and the "hybrid tax" originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 27 Oct 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Increase threat in five easy steps!

Mike Schramm — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 19:00:00 EST

Filed under: Druid, Paladin, Warrior, Tips, Virtual selves, Raiding, Bosses, Buffs, Death Knight

It sounds like an infomercial, but actually Righteous Defense has a great post on how a pally (or any class, really -- his advice is for pallies, but it's common sense enough that any tanking class can use the tips) can step up and increase their threat as far as it will go. I always enjoyed tanking when I did it (and now that I'm leveling up a pally, I'll hopefully be bashing heads in and taking damage again soon), and the key to tanking is just awareness: awareness of where the mobs are, who they're targeting, and where they should be. Increasing threat is really a passive kind of upgrade -- as long as you're hitting your spells right, using the glyphs designed to keep you at the top of an aggro list, and specced and hit-capped for the gear and abilities you're using, keeping threat up is pretty simple. It's just the positioning and dealing with surprises that can be hard.

The last point on RD's list is worth repeating for everyone: use your trinkets, as often as possible. Imagine that, in the next patch notes, you saw a spell under your class listing that did what your trinkets did (added a ton of spellpower or increased armor by 500) and went on to say (infomercial style again) "... at a cost of no mana, focus, rage or ." Wouldn't you be spamming that sucker as often as possible? Get your gear straight, use the right abilities, and break out your trinkets whenever you can, and keeping threat should be no problem at all for any given class.

Increase threat in five easy steps! originally appeared on WoW.com on Fri, 23 Oct 2009 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Breakfast Topic: Once more through the breach

Matthew Rossi — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 08:00:00 EST

Filed under: Paladin, Shaman, Warrior, Analysis / Opinion, Breakfast topics, Leveling, Alts, Death Knight, Wrath of the Lich King

You hear a lot of complaining about leveling up new alts. Having to see the same content again. And I've even said so myself from time to time and meant it. But recently, I dusted off my JC alt and decided to make a push to 80 with him, in part to have a toon to cut all these epic stam gems I need for my tank set now that I'm prot/arms... and also because, griping be damned, I missed fury. (Yeah, yeah, no one's surprised I caved and went back to Titan's Grip, not even me.)

Yes, that's right. My JC alt was a level 70 warrior. And now, he's a level 76 warrior. And I'm having a blast seeing all the stuff I've already seen four or five times now (depending on if you count my Horde alts and taking into account that they have different quests to some degree) on a class I've already leveled to 80 twice. (I also leveled my draenei warrior to 76 before abandoning him.) To be honest, part of it is the fun of trying out a fury spec designed entirely around as much self healing as possible with the Glyph of Bloodthirst and Blood Craze, and part of it is just that I missed these particular questlines.

Continue reading Breakfast Topic: Once more through the breach

Breakfast Topic: Once more through the breach originally appeared on WoW.com on Wed, 21 Oct 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Raid Rx: Healing heroic Lord Jaraxxus

Matt Low — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 16:00:00 EST

Filed under: Druid, Paladin, Priest, Shaman, Raiding, Guides, (Raid Healing) Raid Rx

This is the second boss in Trial of the Crusader. After you healed through the gate bosses that comprise the Northrend Beasts, Lord Jaraxxus is the next step.

My raid group managed to get this demon lord down this past week. We got the 10-man version down several weeks ago but the 25-man version eluded us for some time. Compared to Northrend Beasts, this boss should feel relatively easier. Your raid will spend less time learning Lord Jaraxxus than the previous boss.

Let's check out the healing side of things, shall we?

Continue reading Raid Rx: Healing heroic Lord Jaraxxus

Raid Rx: Healing heroic Lord Jaraxxus originally appeared on WoW.com on Tue, 20 Oct 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

The Daily Quest: Grid healing addon guides and resources

Dan O'Halloran — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 19:00:00 EST

Filed under: Druid, Paladin, Priest, Shaman, AddOns, Raiding, The Daily Quest

Our very own Robin Torres is making the plunge into raiding and is looking for guides that help with the setup and use of the healing AddOn Grid. Being the resource nut that I am, I had a handful of links for her in two minutes. And now I share them with you:

Some players prefer HealBot over Grid (here's a good comparison of the two) and still others prefer AddOns that do more than just raid heal functionality (PitBull 4, though still in beta.)

The Daily Quest: Grid healing addon guides and resources originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 19 Oct 2009 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

A macro for stacking parry or dodge

Mike Schramm — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 16:00:00 EST

Filed under: Druid, Paladin, Warrior, Tips, How-tos, Death Knight

I haven't played a tank in a while, so I haven't had to mess with stats at endgame for a long time. Though my paladin is slowly getting there, so this little macro over at Honor's Code might come in handy. Parry and dodge are very similar abilities -- both of them help you to completely avoid damage from bosses as a tank. But they do have a very few important differences (Parry speeds up your next attack swing, and is affected by diminishing returns at higher levels of the stat), so when you're gearing up at endgame, you want to make sure to balance them out in the right way.

Continue reading A macro for stacking parry or dodge

A macro for stacking parry or dodge originally appeared on WoW.com on Fri, 16 Oct 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

The Light and How to Swing It: Tier 10 thus far

Gregg Reece — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 09:00:00 EST

Filed under: Paladin, Patches, Analysis / Opinion, (Paladin) The Light and How to Swing It, Wrath of the Lich King

With the Light as his strength, Gregg Reece of The Light and How to Swing It faces down the demons of the Burning Legion, the undead of the Scourge, and helps with the puppet shows at the Argent Ren Faire up in Icecrown. This week, he ventures into the unknown depths of the Mines of Data to bring you information on the upcoming tier 10 paladin armor.

Being as paladins, along with half of the other classes, still don't actually have models for their tier 10 gear yet on the PTR there isn't much we can actually show you other than a dwarf in his boxers. What we do have is the set bonuses which may or may not change by the time patch 3.3 actually hits. Both holy and retribution have been changed a couple times throughout the test builds thus far, so they should be getting fairly close to what we'll see. Protection hasn't had much change in it thus far, but the bonuses are in line with what we should be expecting. After the break, we'll look at each spec's set bonuses and do a little theorycrafting in some cases to see what they'll mean for us in Icecrown.

Continue reading The Light and How to Swing It: Tier 10 thus far

The Light and How to Swing It: Tier 10 thus far originally appeared on WoW.com on Wed, 14 Oct 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Raid Rx: Healing heroic Northrend Beasts

Matt Low — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 18:00:00 EST

Filed under: Druid, Paladin, Priest, Shaman, Raiding, (Raid Healing) Raid Rx

Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a WoW blog for all things UI, macro, and addon related. his week, we step into one of the more challenging hard mode encounters: Northrend Beasts in Trial of the Grand Crusader.

Welcome to the NBE encounter. And no, I'm not referring to Megatron. NBE is shorthand for the Northrend Beasts Encounter. It's a straightforward engagement on normal. Once the switch is toggled to heroic, the fight goes into over drive. There's a few changes that us healers need to grasp. For one, there's a strict time limit on each set of beasts. Can't kill Gormok quick enough? Too bad! Ready or not, here's the twin snakes!

Continue reading Raid Rx: Healing heroic Northrend Beasts

Raid Rx: Healing heroic Northrend Beasts originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 12 Oct 2009 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Blood Sport: Patch 3.2.2, the times they are a-changin, Part II

C. Christian Moore — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 18:00:00 EST

Filed under: Paladin, Priest, Rogue, Shaman, Warrior, Patches, News items, PvP, Classes, Wrath of the Lich King, (Arena PvP) Blood Sport, Arena

In keeping with our musical theme, here's David Bowie's Changes. Most of you have probably heard it, but most of us have not really listened to it. Take some time to enjoy one of Bowie's most renowned pieces with the article today.

Last time, I went over a few significant arena modifications that 3.2.2 brought us. Square pillars for line-of-sight, the armor penetration nerf, focus frames, flying in battlegrounds, and the Onyxia loot table can be found here.

This article is going to talk about five of the nine classes discussed in the 3.2.2 patch notes (warlocks were left out). The reason we won't be talking about the other four is sheer article size. I'm not getting blamed for breaking anyone's scroll wheel today! We'll go over death knights, hunters, druids, and mages in the second part of this part II (which should be in a day or two).

I'm giving analysis on class changes; I hope we will agree on most things, but if you disagree or decide I don't understand a mechanic properly, please let me know in the comments below. I read all your comments and am often stunned with how gracious our readers have been towards me. Thank you for all the kind words, those of you who took the time to write them!

Please don't assume that I don't care if I don't write a large amount about the horrors of nerfing or the glories of buffing your main character's class (triple negative hooray). I probably don't know enough about the intricacies of the change to make an educated prediction, and would say little rather than proclaim "this will gimp class X vs. class Y" and have it fail to come to fruition.

I'm going to be ignoring all non-pvp related notes. If you think I left something out, please post a comment below and I will (most likely) edit the post accordingly.

Also, 3.3 patch notes are out already! Next week, part III will be merged with the 3.3 patch notes that are coming; there's a lot to talk about!

So, without further ado, here's what 3.2.2 is cha-cha-cha-cha-changing in the arena world.

Continue reading Blood Sport: Patch 3.2.2, the times they are a-changin, Part II

Blood Sport: Patch 3.2.2, the times they are a-changin, Part II originally appeared on WoW.com on Fri, 09 Oct 2009 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Patch 3.3 PTR: Area-of-effect damage cap change

Dominic Hobbs — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 14:00:00 EST

Filed under: Druid, Hunter, Mage, Paladin, Priest, Rogue, Shaman, Warlock, Warrior, Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Guides, Death Knight

The area-of-effect damage cap is something that doesn't get talked about a whole lot. The first time I noticed it having a real effect on gameplay was in Mount Hyjal ("Hey, warlock! Wake up and throw us another Seed of Corruption!"). So what is it and what is patch 3.3 doing with it?

When you hit a single mob or player with a spell, or some kind of crude inertia-based impact utensil, the game will work out how much damage that target takes. This is based on the various offensive properties of you and the spell or utensil, as well as the defensive properties of your target. The same is true for area-of-effect (or AoE) abilities, though these tend to do less damage to a single target. Add in some more targets and, while it's still fun to do lots of damage to one of them (with the casting and the poking with sticks), you may have a chance to do damage to all of them at once. Let's say that you can do 2500 damage to a single target with one spell or stab, but can only do 1000 damage to a single target with your AoE ability. If you have five targets that you can hit with your AoE, then that will do a total of 5000 damage. Already we're having more fun than just beating on the one target.

Continue reading Patch 3.3 PTR: Area-of-effect damage cap change

Patch 3.3 PTR: Area-of-effect damage cap change originally appeared on WoW.com on Fri, 09 Oct 2009 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Breakfast Topic: Which class am I again?

Matthew Rossi — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 08:00:00 EST

Filed under: Druid, Hunter, Mage, Paladin, Priest, Rogue, Shaman, Warlock, Warrior, Analysis / Opinion, Breakfast topics, Death Knight

Tonight, after Trials of the Grand Crusader (four down, bug to go) we decided to hop onto some alts, which led to back to back TotC 10 on my DK and Shaman. Then back to back Ony 10, also on the DK and Shaman. And because I'd spent hours in TotGC 25 on my warrior before that, by the end of the night, I had no idea what class abilities I had anymore. Between popping Army of the Dead when they called for Heroism (it's bound to the same key) to trying desperately to use Chains of Ice when asked to Frost Shock the Ret Pally, I was in rare form. And it wasn't just me, either: the druid healer is usually a mage, the warlock raids as a priest, and the holy paladin healing the second Ony attempt has something like 10 alts at 80. I'm surprised he even knows where he is. We got it all done, mind you, but you can really tell the difference in smoothness between our mains and our alts, even as well geared as the alts often are.

So now I put it to you, gentle readers. Do you ever suffer from class bleedover? Are you ever on your druid finding yourself mashing the Consecration button, or on your Mage trying to use Hymn of Hope? Or do you find it easy to keep it all straight?

Breakfast Topic: Which class am I again? originally appeared on WoW.com on Fri, 09 Oct 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Patch 3.3 PTR: Tier 10 set bonuses

Alex Ziebart — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 21:30:00 EST

Filed under: Druid, Hunter, Mage, Paladin, Priest, Rogue, Shaman, Warlock, Warrior, Analysis / Opinion, Death Knight

As you've probably heard, the latest build just hit the Patch 3.3 PTR. With it comes a ton of great stuff, including the Tier 10 set bonuses! The usual warning accompanies them, they might change, they're not necessarily final, they could be place holders, et cetera. They look pretty flipping good right now, though. Chase Christian seemed quite shocked at the staggering upgrade the Rogue bonus is from what they had previously.

All set bonuses are listed below, classes arranged in alphabetical order.

Death Knight

Death Knight T10 Tank 2P Bonus - Increases the damage done by your Death and Decay ability by 20%.
Death Knight T10 Tank 4P Bonus - When you activate Blood Tap, you gain 12% damage reduction from all attacks for 10 sec.
Death Knight T10 Melee 2P Bonus - Your Obliterate, Scourge Strike, and Death Strike abilities deal 10% increased damage.
Death Knight T10 Melee 4P Bonus - Whenever all your runes are on cooldown, you gain 3% increased damage done with weapons, spells, and abilities for the next 15 sec.

Continue reading Patch 3.3 PTR: Tier 10 set bonuses

Patch 3.3 PTR: Tier 10 set bonuses originally appeared on WoW.com on Wed, 07 Oct 2009 21:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

WoW Moviewatch: How to paladin XXXV

Michael Gray — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 12:00:00 EST

Filed under: Paladin, Analysis / Opinion, WoW Moviewatch

Some legends are so strong, they can nearly stand on their own merits. Nearly. The paladin class is one of those legends. It is a powerful class. It is built of holy Light and vast capability. But the class is only a tool. Like any tool, that class must be picked up and wielded with grace and competency in order to reach its full potential. We need a leader; someone must show us the way to true honor. Where can we find such a person?

Shepiwot is such a person. The Master of Paladins -- perhaps the finest ever to grace Azeroth -- has returned to bless us with How to paladin XXXV.

As a special bonus, Shepiwot takes the time to celebrate Brewfest in How to paladin XXXV. Or, at least, to get completely sauced. Other than that, I shall let the video speak for itself. Tremble, mortals.

Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an e-mail at machinima AT wow DOT com.

WoW Moviewatch: How to paladin XXXV originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 05 Oct 2009 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments