Thursday, January 31, 2008

What do you enjoy about the class you play the most?

Blog Azeroth asks:
What do you enjoy about the class you play the most?


This one is easy.

I love playing the game under the presumption that Paladin's can't DPS, when, in fact, we totally can!

Yes, yes, maybe we couldn't before, unless we were really, REALLY good. And Patch 2.3 changed the game up a whole lot.

There is nothing more satisfying to me then being complimented on my damage output in a party and thereby shattering any preconcieved notions that person may or may not have had
about my class and chosen talent spec.

I want Paladins to raid as DPS. There's enough of us who want to. I want the WoW community at large to see that, in fact, we CAN fulfill this role, and that we should be desired as such.

Of course, I don't want the Holy specs to stop Healing, or the Protection specs to stop tanking. I want all of us to play our chosen specs to the fullest and be accepted by our peers in whatever role we chose to play. More so than that, I want Paladins to be respected for what we can accomplish in said roles. And respect is what it really boils down to.

No one has ever complained about a Paladin healing (that I've seen). Since Burning Crusade (roughly) I haven't heard any complaints about Paldins tanking either. DPSers are a dime-a-dozen, but tanks and healers are priceless.

I would go one step further and encourage my fellow Retribution Paladins to stock up on healing and tanking gear as well. Often you will be in dungeons were great blues drop that no one needs. This provides an excellent opportunity to build up on your versatility. I have no qualms with healing in cloth, or tanking in Warrior gear without INT on it.

To close I'd like to say thanks to Blog Azeroth for coming up with Shared Topics, it's a fun idea and hope to see more in the future.

Sunday, January 27, 2008

I has a Thunder!

I hit level 350 Blacksmith over the weekend and I had grown impatient with the gear grind to meet suggested Karazhan benchmarks. I had planned to go Hammersmith and craft myself the Stormherald series since I transferred Arcten to Draenor, but after buying my flying mount, I didn't have much to spare.

Now, since playing Runic, I had grown accustomed to being in a Karazhan raiding guild, having a weapon and gear to support my chosen talent spec, and being one of the highest-damaging Ret Paladins I knew. Shandris was a small server, and Runic had been gathering the perfect Ret gear (pre patch 2.3) that he could find for some time.

Draenor was huge, however. It'd had been months since I'd waited in a queue to log into the game server. And I knew that separating myself from the bazillion other Ret Paladins on the server would not be easy.

I geared Arcten as well as I could, and I was consistently in the top 1 or 2 damage spot in parties (though since level 70, I've been out-dpsed by even more mages, I'm done competing with them). But it still wasn't enough.

Runic had an epic 2h weapon. I wanted one for Arcten too!

Runic had heavy bonuses on his Ret gear to the right Stats. I wanted Arcten to have that too!

Runic had a couple thousand gold to blow on pretty much whatever he wanted! And dammit, I wanted Arcten to be able to blow some gold too!

So what did I do?

I cannibalized Runic and pawned all his gear.

I shelled out my $25 and transferred Runic to Draenor. Then I abused the linked neutral Auction Houses with my guildmistress, Lanikoa. I posted all kinds of uncommon and rare-quality gems and mining bars and ores for 1 copper from Runic. After which, a waiting Lanikoa quickly bought them all up as we coordinated everything over Teamspeak (actually, I just logged in with Arcten to explain which items where being put up and then logged out to post them).

Finally, I handed my guildmistress a single, Netherweave Bandage and said, "post this for exactly 1647 gold".

Runic logged back on and bought said bandage, effectively draining every last piece of gold he had on him.

The last hour waiting for my big lump of gold to show up in my GM's mailbox was the longest hour of playing WoW, EVER! But finally it came.

The bastard Auction House took about a 400g cut from it all, but some was better than none. Lanikoa handed the gold to Arcten, minus her share of the transfer and I went off skipping to the Auction House.

Now the Alliance Auction House on Draenor is a wonderful thing indeed! Chances are, if you need something, it's there.

In my case, I needed about 17 Primal Air and 13 Primal Water (the some of which I transferred from Runic to Arcten).

So I bought my mats in Stormwind and went off to craft my hammer. It was beautiful. I took it in my hand and raised it proudly and mightily exclaimed in guild chat, "I has a Thunder!"

But see, then the shakes came.

I still had a good chunk of change left over. And I wasn't sure what to do with it. Now when searching for the previous mats, I noticed that were a whole lot of Primal Fires on there, and so just for shites and giggles, I did a level 70 plate search for armor of rare quality.

Ragesteel shoulders came up, for one.

Now they were good. I mean REALLY good. Much better than the Warchief's mantle that I was using. Furthermore, they had some +Hit Rating on them (which I am hurting BADLY for in order to reach Karazhan entry-benchmark stats) AND two yellow sockets, so I could toss a deuce of Rigid Golden Draenite in there too for another +16 Hit Rating.

Yeah, I bought them; bought the Golden Draenite too!

I equipped them and suddenly felt awesome, and I was only out 160g for armor and gems.

"Hmmm... they're part of a set..."

I noticed this after I had purchased them and immediately searched the auction house for the rest of these Ragsteel pieces. None were to be found, and I still had all this gold too! So I went to the Trade channel!

/trade LF Blacksmith to Craft Ragesteel, my mats!

I got a whisper from a fellow Paladin, Betrayed. I asked what the mats were, like a noob, and I saw that the amount of Primal Fires required for the rest of the pieces were going to cost me. Geez, I'd be way better off buying this stuff on the AH, but none there, so I bought everything; the Khorium, the Fel Iron, the Primal Fires, the Elixir's of Major Strength. Everything that goes into these things I bought.

"Allright, I got the mats, meet me in Dwarf District of SW?"

So, Betrayed shows up. Come to find out that he was a mace and shield-wielding Paladin rocking full Crystalforge, cool! I hand him the mats, he crafts my stuff, I give him a healthy tip, and I'm on my way again.

But wait... Enchants! I can still squeeze +15 STR on the gloves and +6 all stats on chest! Oh, and Thunder needs something too, Savagery for me! Kthx!

So yeah, between crafting mats and enchanting mats… that gold is totally gone.

But that’s okay, because now I’m rocking (unbuffed):
1482 Attack Power
27.24% Crit
5.26% Hit

I did have to give Runic one last run through the Barrens… naked… and then end it all by flying his Tawny Windrider to the highest point above Hellfire Citadel, /dismount in the air, and then watch him fall to his doom one last time.

I logged out at the graveyard and hit the delete button for Runic on my character select screen.

Thanks for the fun times and all the gold Runic, R.I.P.

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Best... group... ever...





I'm working on my dailies yesterday in Skettis, I'd been camping a spawn point for the escort guy for about 10 minutes or so. My wife has the kids taken care of at this point and she's graciously giving me some time to play WoW. So I think to myself, "well, I don't think I'm gonna be able to escort this guy today, there's just too many folks camping him out and the last party I was in had horde show up at the spawn point before I could get there so screw it! I'll put myself in the LFG tool for Shadow Labyrinth and head back to town". In addition to a cloak dropped by one of the bosses in there, I needed my first key fragment for Karazhan from Shadow Labyrinth. So I cross my fingers and hope.

I get a tell from Scarletpally, "What's your spec?"

Now I know this guy. He is an extremely talented healer who runs around in a full set of healing cloth. I ran Durnholde with him as healer and he kept everyone's life bar pretty much topped off at all times. He could very well be the most skilled and best-geared healer I've met on Draenor thus far.

So, I answer him in a friendly tone with my typical reply to such a request, I didn't think he remembered me, "Well, Ret but I carry around gear for that other stuff too".

"That's good, we need a Ret Paladin". So he invites me and I join. Though I am scratching my head a bit because I'd never heard of a party needing a Ret Paladin specifically.

So I accept the invite and I see the little portraits of my party mates appear, and, habitually, I mouse over each one to see what classes we're working with.

Paladin...

Paladin...

Paladin...

Paladin...

Myself (also Paladin).

So I ask in party, "Uh... Scarlet? Did you know you invited nothing but Paladins?"

"Ya lol!"


"Well," I reply, "even if we wipe a million times over, this will still be hilarity at its utmost! So what's everyone's spec?"

The group composition was thus:
Augustus - A Human Protection Paladin (who would be full-time tank)
Scarletpally - A Human Holy Paladin (who would be full-time healer)
Sgtcrush - A Human Retribution Paladin (later replaced by Notabuffbot) (who would be full-time DPS)
Laqueeta - A Draenei Holy Paladin (who would also be full-time healer)
Notabuffbot - A Human Protection Paladin (was not present at first, replaced Sgtcrush on the last room before Murmur) (who would be full-time DPS)
Arcten - A Human Retribution Paladin, myself (who would also be full-time DPS)

So we head in, apprehensive as hell, but the general vibe in party chat is really positive. We buff up, and here is where I lol'd for the first time.

"Okay, buff up!" exclaims Scarlet. "I got Light and Concentration Aura!"

"I'll do kings and devo", says Augustus

Not many buffs left and I spent hard-earned talent points on these and I'm not about to let them go to waste! So I speak up, "I've got Imp Sanct and Might, I'll do those!"

"Shadow and Wisdom" Laqueeta casually responds.

"Well, sh!t" Sgtcrush bellows. "Ret and uhhh.." .

To be honest, I don't remember what he ended up buffing us with. I think it might have been Salvation (and Augustus would've right-clicked it off himself). I was too busy laughing my head off after I cast a single greater blessing and all of us were hit by it. Then three consecutive *boom* noises of three other greater blessings going off. But I notice Scarlet is repeatedly casting his BoWisdom on us, and my buff counter shows only 10 minutes.

"Lol, use greater Scarlet!"

"Can't! Don't have any Symbols!"

Now I always carry about three stacks of Symbols on me, just in case. But after casting a single greater blessing and having the whole party now showing the only buff I can cast now, I figured I wouldn't be needing many symbols. Carrying 300-ish probably overkill, except for situations like this, but since I didn't see reagents being much of a problem, I say to Scarletpally, "You knucklehead, c'mere!" and I hand him a stack of 100 symbols.

Wow! Efficient buffing! No repeated buffs or wasted reagents!

So I stop laughing and had to take a moment to focus. Next was coming the first pull of the run.

First pull opens up with a pack of humanoid being hit by Augustus flinging his glowing shield. Not a single target mark, just a pack of mobs, I watch closely and see which one Augustus tears into first, he's doing his thing with Seal of Vengeance. I target Augustus and immediately switch over to the little portrait of his target. The consecrate goes down and I'm wailing on the tanks target. I look over a bit and see that Sgtcrush has begun tearing into the same one.

Wow! Focused fighting! Without marks!

I look up from time to time at Augustus' heath bar, making sure I don't need to toss out an
"osh!t" heal, because he's getting wailed on by a lot of mobs... and keeping them focused on him. Every single time my eye wanders up to Augustus' life bar, he gets hit with another heal, and it jumps back up to full.

"Okay", I think "Augustus is getting healed, how about the rest of us?". I look over at Sgtcrush, and he keeps blinking with the light of a cast heal as well, hell, I'm blinking too, upwards of 1700 hit points at a time!

Wow! Flawless healing, and enough mana on the healers that absolutely none of it was wasted.

Now three of us were in melee, but I saw only two Judgments being put on the target at a time. Crusader, which I was doing, and Vengeance from Augustus. I watched his seal animation for a moment whilst fighting and notice that Sgtcrush too was Sealing and then Judging Crusader.

"Hey Crush" I whisper to him, "you mind throwing Wisdom on these guys instead, our Crusader Judgments don't stack".

"Sure man, no prob," he whispers in reply, "Kinda habit, y'know?"

"I certainly do."

Wow! A cooperative teammate willing to switch up their habitual play style a bit for the benefit of the entire party!

But wait! A FOURTH Judgment appeared on the target! Seal of Light!!! But from who?

*cue suspenseful music crescendo*

Toward the corner of my screen, I saw Laqueeta, one of our beloved healers, in her grim-looking Mask of Penance approach our foe and swing her glowing battle mace just long enough to cast this Judgment upon our target and back away. Crusader Strikes from Sgtcrush and me did their job and kept it refreshed. Offensively, our healer went above and beyond what is usually expected.

Wow! Heals that are so efficient that a healer has time mid-fight to go above and beyond and help out even more!

The rest of the pulls from each of the rooms we made it through went along just as smooth. No more Judgments were cast in error. We worked expertly off each other's synergy. No one did anything stupid. The DPS was far more than adequate.

Though briefly, on the topic of DPS, seeing 5 Hammers of Wrath all being cast simultaneously and watching a foe erupt in a fiery death of explosive holy wrath is the most awesome-looking thing, ever!

We had one wipe on trash, and that was only because we didn't think to pull a pack of mobs quite far enough back in the room of Blackheart.

A Divine Intervention was cast, but it was cast in haste and the recipient of said DI was in a very undesirable position in relation to the mobs. So all died and had to run back.

Five resurrection spells and not a single rez received! Oh the irony! But either way, we ran back, rested up, rebuffed and cleared the remaining mobs in that room flawlessly. We rebound quickly from the wipe but my heart sunk into the pit of my stomach, because up next... was Blackheart the Inciter.

For those unfamiliar with Blackheart the Inciter:
A. He drops one of the best Pre-Karazhan cloaks in the game, one that I have also added to my Karazhan-entry gear wish list, the
Cloak of the Inciter.
B. He mind controls the whole party and makes you go buck-wild and fight your party mates like five starved and rabid dogs all locked in a cage together.

I am more concerned with prospect "B" at this point.

"So uhh... you guys wanna do this?"

"Pop our cool downs at start of fight and dig in."

"Okay, um, which cool downs?"

"Avenging Wrath"

"No, Divine Protection"

"No, Avenging Wrath it will be better"

"But he can't kill us if we use Protection, let's use that."

"Okay, okay, fine, the offensive guys will pop Avenging Wrath, the defense won't pop anything. Let's HOPE that he makes our squishy friend in Priest Cloth use his bubble when he MC's us!"

So, we ignited our fiery wings and laid into the boss. His health was going down very, VERY slowly (remember, that two of our members were healing full-time, so we really only had 2 DPSers as opposed to the usual 3). The fight kept going on and on and on and finally, he let us know...

"IT'S TIME FOR FUN!"

When an Ogre says, "it's time for fun", it usually isn't.

This was no different. It was not fun... well... okay... maybe it WAS a little fun seeing my avatar run around, casting seals and auras and blessings of questionable synergy and value and running up to my party mates and thwacking on them a couple times. The Consecrates were EVERYWHERE! You couldn't run around without seeing little yellow damage-over-time numbers clock up all around you. I'm not sure what Blackheart did to everyone else, but when he took control of Arcten, he seemed to favor using a Concentration Aura, Judgment of Light, and Seal of Vengeance combination against my party mates

The "fun" finally ended with the MC ending, a moment of pause, and then a big animation of Thunderclap and everyone flying away from each other and landing with about 2k more of damage inflicted than we had previously just inflicted upon each other.

Bandage up and run back in. Hope the tank would get agro back and we'd all end up in healing range again.

"IT'S TIME FOR FUN!"

Again, it wasn't, this time, Blackheart activated my furious wings and had me lay in on Augustus, our tank. The funniest thing though, was that Blackheart also had the tank spamming Consecrates and I ended up taking a lot more damage from the tank than the tank took from me. When the "fun" ended, we went back to wailing on him. Mana was looking really, REALLY slim towards the end of that fight, I think I went through about three potions over the course, but we downed him. He dropped some caster trinket instead of my cloak that he was supposed to and we pressed on.

More clearing, more flawless execution.

We got to Grandmaster Vorpil.

"Anyone done this fight before, cuz I haven't?" asks Augustus. Again, my heart sinks, as this fight is all about clever tanking. "Just kidding, lol", he chimes after a moment of shocked silence.

Bastard...

Wow! A tank that is spec'd and geared properly and knows exactly what he's supposed to do in a given situation!

Relieved, we begin and the fight goes very, VERY well. Not a single hit from a voidwalker. Vorpil dies, he dropped something else for casters, don't remember what, and we press on toward Murmur.

We start clearing Murmur's room and alas, we wipe (we didn't go after the casters first), however... a Divine Intervention (executed perfectly, this time) comes through and we are saved a run back to our corpses. We adjust our tactics accordingly and handle the casters first, this works well and we easily make our way through the room. About half-done however, Sgtcrush, the other Retribution guy has to go, due to girlfriend agro.

So we are down to four and Murmur is just a couple pulls away. And things had been going so well up until now! At this point, we're all completely sure that nothing but another Paladin will do. This is how we started the run, and damn it this is how we end it!

Oddly enough there is not a single Retribution Paladin to be found in LFG, so we discuss the prospect of our options.

"Can we make do with another Holy?"

"Not if they're spec'd to heal, we're gonna need more damage on this fight, they better have a wicked Holy Shock"

"Lemmie ask..."

"But there's no other Paladins"

"Wait... there's a new Paladin who just joined LFG, lemmie ask him his spec"

"He's Prot, do we want him?"

"Yeah, Prot can kinda DPS with 1hand"

"It's better than nothing, let's grab him"

*Notabuffbot has joined your party!*

"Let's go summon!"

Scarletpally and I begin running out, he drinks a tall glass of Haterade and starts whining about me running so much faster than him. I pass him up on the run and give him a /farewell wave with a /comfort reach around.

Outside the instance, Notabuffbot is happily waiting for us (jerk didn't even bother to tell us he'd already flown here, heh, heh). We gather him up and make our way back inside and rendezvous at the last room to Murmur, where only a few packs of mobs remain.

We buff up, get our auras and judgments straight again and we go to work.

"What happens when you have two Paladins Seal and Judging Vengeance?" I ask. My answer came soon enough.

Real ultimate face-melting power that's what!

I'm watching the life bars on these mobs go down like the Red Baron and for those who haven't seen it before, Seal of Vengeance has this stacking effect. The more stacks of seal of Vengeance on a mob, the more damage a Judgment will do, but the stacks don't go away, they stay there. I'm doing my SoComm/CStrike thing and I'm pretty pleased with myself, and then I see the Vengeance number tick on the debuff icon jump from 1 to 5 in a matter of seconds. Then I see two Judgments go off almost in synch with each other, and these life bars just drop! I am in awe of a pair of Prot Paladins just feeding off of each other's synergy. My initial doubts about a Prot Paladin filling a DPS role in this group were shattered. Somehow I knew that we were going to be fine against Murmur.

We clear the room and briefly discuss the Murmur fight.

I want to go on record saying that "running out of the circular alcove and up on its edge" is NOT enough to get away from his Sonic Boom. You have to just keep running and don't stop until you hit a wall if you can get away that fast. Then you can go back in, refresh your Judgment and go back to work!

I had an empty life bar a few times during that fight, usually after a Sonic Boom, only to be brought right back up to full HP by a deuce of Holy Light casts. Again, the damage was SLOW going. We certainly could've killed the guy faster with a Mage and a Hunter, BUT, we had mana and the survivability to Outlast Murmur. Yeah, it took two healers, and maybe having a Prot Paladin on DPS should be a last-ditch effort (which it was for us). But we did it, baby! We dropped that sucker like a five-dollar ho and cleared the who damn instance! Paladins all! He dropped MORE caster stuff (great for Scarletpally, who wears cloth anyway, lol), but I did get my First Key Fragment. I'll be back, however, because I still need that damn cloak from Blackheart the Inciter.

This was surely a fluke, and I'll probably never experience this kind of amazing party ever again (but I friended all of them, so maybe), but I would have to say this:

Best... group... *hold for dramatic pause*... EVER!

A prominent party of proficient Paladins perfectly pwns a PUG'd instance! Remember that!

Ready for Kara? Meh, not quite.

My current project is gearing up for Karazhan. Looking back, I sent Runic in there WAY too early. Sure, I got some Justicar Gauntlets, and some epic healing gear, but I was SO ineffectual in there. So gearing up will be simultaneous with knocking out quests, grinding faction, and actually completing the Key quest itself.

Gearing for Karazhan, I am using 3 tools:

1. Paladincraft.net's (dated, but still good) suggested Kara-entry Paladin guide. I think their benchmark stats are fair and functional, this is the guide I will be following into Karazhan.
2. Lootzor.com - to find the gear that will help me reach the benchmarks as defined by tool #1.
3. Gem Finder - because I don't think that the innate stats from tool #2 will quite get me to the objectives as defined by tool #1.

There are a few rules I am working by:

A. Don't screw yourself out of socket bonuses - if you can't find the exact stat for the exact color you need, get something else (and don't neglect your other stats).
B. Strength is preferable over Attack Power (in similar amounts), Agility is preferable over Crit Rating (in similar amounts) - because STR comes in larger numbers, and AGI helps with Parrying and Dodging too (and I don't use a shield in Ret Gear).

For Paladins, I believe the prime stat to subsequent stat is (theorycraft, lol):
1 points Strength = 2 points Attack Power
25 points AGI = 1% Crit = 22.08 Crit Rating

Do not quote me on those. I'm sure if I weren't at work I could probably go to elitistjerks.com or WoWWikki and find some exact calculations there; but I'm not so I can't.

Using the above calculations and the 3 aforementioned tools, I have compiled a list of gear that I will be chasing down before even trying to get into a Kara raid, ensuring that I meet Paladincraft's recommended benchmarks.

Head: Overlord's Helmet of Second Sight (Quest) (CHECK)
Neck: Natasha's Choker (Quest) (CHECK)
Shoulder: Ragesteel Shoulders (Craft) (CHECK)
Back: Cloak of the Inciter (Shadow Labirynth) or Auchenai Death Shroud ([Heroic?] Crypts)
Chest: Blackened Chestplate (Quest) (CHECK)
Wrist: Bracers of Just Rewards (Heroic Ramparts)
Waist: Deathforge Girdle (Seth Halls) (CHECK)
Legs: Legguards of the Shattered Hand (World) (CHECK)

Feet: Bloodsworn Warboots (Heroic Furnace) or Vortex Walking Boots (Exalted: Ogri'la)
Finger: Ring of the Shadow Deeps (Heroic Underbog) & Shaffar's Band of Brutality (Heroic Mana Tombs)
Trinket: Abacus of Violent Odds (Mech) & Hourglass of the Unraveller (Dark Portal)
Weapon: Thunder (Crafted, Hammersmith-Only)
(CHECK)

Looking over my gear right now, as of this initial writing, Hit Rating seems to be my biggest downfall. Obviously, I will need to compensate for that with gems (again, without screwing myself out of socket bonuses). But hopefully my Attack Power and Crit % won't suffer too badly as a result. This goes back to the reason why I won't mismatch sockets. There's other gems that could go in there for different stats!

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Months after 2.3, I'm still not feeling the love.

I knew that Paladins were going to be good after Patch 2.3. Now, several months after Patch 2.3, I still can't believe HOW good we are!

Consistently, I am at the top of the damage meter in EVERY SINGLE PUG I'M EVER IN (assuming that I have been brought into the PUG to fulfill the role of DPS and I am doing DPS throughout the whole run, as opposed to tanking or healing).

I exaggerate a bit, I was passed up on one occasion in Mana Tombs at level 69 by a 70 Mage (but not the 70 Warlock who was with us).

At this time, I am using
The Oathkeeper and it is a very good weapon. But it's still no Thunder, and certainly no Hammer of the Naaru. With my last Paladin that I leveled to 70, Runic; I didn't experience anywhere NEAR this much damage output, and he was using the Lionheart Blade two weeks after hitting 70 (okay, so I didn't have a flying mount for a month or so after, I spent my mount money on mats for that sword). Arcten has no such equipment (as of this writing, not even a single epic). Runic had a better weapon, a better Seal (Blood), and better gear.

I think I am exaggerating again. By "better" gear, I mean Runic had "Paladin" gear.

I didn't ever stack spell damage, I just simply chose not to equip an item unless it was Plate with both Strength AND Intellect on it (unless it was healing or tanking gear). This got the job done, and even though Runic was no slouch, Arcten is still smashing where he was on the damage meters, with a Rare-quality weapon at that.

So yes, Patch 2.3 was the absolute best thing that has ever happened to the Paladin class, specifically, those of us who chose to be Retribution.

But Patch 2.3 changed up the way the game is played a bit. Instead of "Paladin" gear, to do well, this time around I had to gear myself like a Mortal Strike Warrior.

Seal of Command deals holy damage based off a percentage of weapon damage.

Seal of Blood deals holy damage based off a percentage of weapon damage.

Crusader Strike deals normal damage based off a percentage of weapon damage (and gets no bonus from Spell Damage).

I'm seeing a pattern here!

All the aforementioned abilities use your Weapon's Damage, Weapon Skill, Expertise, Strength, Attack Power, and melee Crit % to calculate their damage!

Don't Warriors have a similar setup? Something like Mortal Strike? Mortal Strike Warriors go heavy STR, AP, AGI, Crit %, and Hit in their gear.

I have too (well, working on the Hit for Kara at least, not quite there yet). And I can look you in the eye and honestly say (ego aside), "yes, I have geared myself like a Mortal Strike Warrior, and yes my speciality is throwing out insane melee damage in nice big chunks, and yes, I'm pretty damn good at it".

I go into a fight, I'm buffed with my max'd out BoMight, Sanctity Aura is up. I Judge Crusader, toss up Seal of Command and pop my Crusader Strike, Hammer of Justice, and Judgement whenever their cooldowns are done until the other thing dies. Usually, I won't even get a Hammer of Justice in. The cooldown is too long and the other thing dies too fast. All the while, Vengeance is going off constantly, I'm throwing down damage numbers in the thousands with each hit, then I'll get a big spike from a weapon crit, a SoCo crit, and a CStrike crit to finish the deal.

The chunks at which their life bar disappears; it is honestly a bit insane.

No, I am not melting faces with the furious pyroblast crit from hell. I am coming close though (over time). I am also frequently putting out melee/holy damage that would frighten small children (playing lesser Paladins).

I am scared to death to go into Karazhan. I'm scared it's going to be a big blow to my ego. Here I am crushing mobs in PvE with my earth-shattering blows, completely destroying the reputation that the class' spec has gathered since game launch. And then in Kara, I'll be the "new raider" in Blues trying to put a dent in the damage meter compared to my friends and guildmates in full epics. And again, the "LoLRetnoob" curse will haunt me once again.

I'm not sure what to do about that.

Paladincraft.net has a pretty good (albeit dated pre-2.3) rundown with benchmarks for a Paladin just entering Kara. Age aside, I think they are pretty good benchmarks. I think I can probably meet them. But it doesn't quite fix the issue. If you give a Retribution Paladin a chance to deal some DPS in a PUG, you will be pleasantly surprised. Assuming, of course, they have not half-assed their gear.

But I'm not convinced that the mentality of "Yes! Paladins can be DPS class now, and they should be desired as such!" has been accepted by or shared by the WoW community at large (aside from the players who play Ret and have first-hand knowledge of what we can do). Hopefully, others with the same mindset as me can work to change this.

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

An eventful 3-day weekend indeed!

Wow! Thank goodness for 3-day weekends! Over the course of weekend last I was able to accomplish a number of things:

1. Watched "The Godfather" for the first time in my life. I'm convinced it's one of the best movies ever made.
2. Saw "Cloverfield" with the Missus. I thought it was an enjoyable, good movie! Very intense! Money well-spent.
3. Level from 69-70 (Thanks Nagrand!)
4. Start my Karazhan Key quest (I'm at the Shadow Labs fragment now).
5. Gathered enough gold to go to Shadowmoon Valley and purchase riding training and my flying mount (I chose a Snowy Gryphon).

Really, all I did to accomplish the above (aside from Cloverfield and The Godfather) is just knock out quests in a single zone in order as they appear in your quest log (top to bottom). That's it! I spent gold when I needed an upgrade from the AH, or on mats to craft them for myself (Adamantite Plate, ftw). Obviously, I incurred costs like repair bills, training (level 70 training cost about 100g alone), and consumables. But really, I just ran instances for gear; not even for dungeon drops, but more for the blue-quality quest rewards involved in each instance. This too, required some degree of patience, because you'll typically have to complete a good portion of all the quests in any given zone before you are granted the quests for the dungeons most closely associated with each (for example, you gotta knock out a good portion of the quests in Zangarmarsh before getting the quests for the Coilfang Reservoir instances, or most of the Terokkar Forest quests for the Auchindoun ones).

Lootzor.com has been my friend. I can access it from work. I can sort desired gear by level, stat, and dungeon difficulty involved (Normals, Heroics, Low Raid, High Raid). Seriously, it's a great little tool!

With Runic, I went from Zangarmarsh, to Nagrand, to Blade's Edge, to Shadowmoon Valley. THEN I backtracked to Netherstorm and Terrokar Forest. Keeping things in order this time around was slower in getting me to 70, but more beneficial in terms of money and gear.

Next on my to-do list I suppose is:

1. Go train up the last recipes for Mining
2. Continue to gather mats to max out Blacksmithing,
Thunder will be mine...
2. Farm some Anger Guards for Ragesteel armor plans and craft them with the Khorium I've been hoarding
3. Go kill the named Orc at the Black Temple in Shadowmoon Valley and get my Shattered Halls Key.
4. Land a successful Dark Portal run.
5. Get Exalted with the Consortium for
Hamad's Bargain
6. Get Revered with the Keepers of Time for the
Continuum Blade and Timewarden's Legplates... because Retnoobs need tanking gear too!
7. Continue to grind out quests and work my way up to passable Heroic dungeon gear.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Auchenai Crypts are so full of suck!

After browsing on Lootzor and finding The Exarch’s Protector, I decided to go finish my “What book? I don’t see any book!” quest in Shattarath to start the chain to go get it. The quest to kill `Dirty’ Larry was easy with a 65 Mage and 65 Druid with me (it’s actually really easy to find someone in Shattarath to spend 30 seconds killing an elite NPC inside the city with you). Next step took me out to Nagrand to kill some Greater Windrocs until they dropped an item, and some Aged Clefthoofs until they dropped an item. I had to get 2 more friends to kill a Mountain Gronn, but the quest item from the Mountain Gronn was 100% droprate, so we only had to kill one.

DO THIS QUEST IF YOU EVER PLAN TO GO TO ANY AUCHENDOUN INSTANCE!

More on that later…

So I handed in the quest and the questgiver made me drink an elixir that made it so I could see dead people, like all the time (NPCs, though PC ghosts would be cool too). This proved beneficial because the next quest, “Lexivus the Soul Caller” has you killing one such invisible dead person. Seriously, you can’t see, target, or hence fight against the NPC you have to kill until you do that quest, you can only see him (and other ghosts) if you finished the previous quest, (or I suppose, have an Eye of Shadow or Overlords Helm of Second Sight) then you can see Lexivus and some other ghostly beings in the game world (mostly just in Auchindoun). Well I found two friends who had also completed the previous quest (and thus could see ghosts) and we went on to challenge Lexivus. It was a tank and spank fight, we had the basics, offspec tank, offspec healer, ranged DPS, and he went down easy.

The next part of the quest (after you hand in the Lexivus one) has you go into Auchenai Crypts and kill the last boss, Exarch Maladaar.

Here’s where the story begins:

Our group composition is thus:

Myself – 68 Human Retribution Paladin. I had initially joined the group with goal of killing Exarch Maladaar and getting my Exarch’s Protector chest piece as a quest reward. I had the mindset that I’d end up either tanking or healing, and was pleasantly surprised when things worked out well and we landed a proper tank and healer (though it turns out I’d be tanking anyway, we’ll get to that).

Muadebe – 66 Human Prot Warrior (just re-spec’d from Fury, so his gear is a bit off-spec and playstyle isn’t the best from habit, but he’s passably equipped.

Zzashmazz (or a similar name of equivalent complication) – 66 Gnome Rogue. A typical, crazy Rogue that stealths up to mobs all speedy like and pokes around where he shouldn’t, scaring me half to death in the process on several occasions, but never really does anything wrong and never once got us in trouble (just makes us nervous, Rogues ALWAYS make me nervous).

Ivellios – 65 Night Elf Holy/Discipline Priest. The guy had been away from the game for a while and was just now getting back to running instances. His confidence at playing healer was shaken, but his gear and playstyle were absolutely solid. He slid right back into his old habits and was healing us like a champ after our initial wipes.

Fraq – 64 Gnome Mage. Personality traits? I couldn’t tell you. This guy barely said a word. I know that he put out solid DPS but didn’t ever sheep anything (I think I saw him sheep one thing in the entire instance, maybe because the Rogue was doing most of the sapping).

So the group looks solid, is all assembled and summoned and we head into the Crypts.

“Will someone else mark, I’ve never been here before” says the Rogue.

Silence… I think I even heard some crickets.

This question forces me to realize that I have never been here either, except for with Runic a long, long time ago.

Finally I speak up, “Well with me marking, it’d be more educated guessing on the things which I THINK we should kill first and crowd control, rather than solid, experienced first-hand knowledge”. I’m thinking that I discredit myself sufficiently to pass the buck onto someone else to step up and take responsibility for wiping our party.

*Arcten is now the leader of the party*

Awwww sh!t…

So I’m leader and I study the first patrols for a few passes. Finally I decide that the pathing Priest is going to be our first target and mark her. The Warrior watches her walk up, turn to the left and then CRACK! His Dwarven blunderbuss fills my speakers with its echoing rapport! A flawless pull! The Priestess runs toward the Warrior. We lay into her! We’re doing great!


And then these ghosts appear…

But we stay focused! I notice that the ghosts are not elites so I only move to intercept them if it’s the Healer who catches their agro, content with letting the Mage nuke them down.

It works! No deaths! I mark the next and wait for the Warrior’s shot to ring out. To me, it appears he pulled the second in the exact same spot on the other side of the room as the first, and I’m thinking it’s going to be add-free.

Nope.

Next thing I know, we’re getting beat on by 3 or 4 of these elite casters, AND their ghosts that appear out of thin air.

Wipe.

Reload, run in, half the group is dead, we get one random pather, and we die again.

Wipe (sort of, the mage survived, but we still got no rezzer).

Reload, run in, and press on.

After the second wipe, I decide that we’re doing something wrong, but can’t put my finger on it. I have the idea to put on my tanking gear, throw on Retribution Aura, toss Righteous Fury up, switch my`5’ key to Seal of Righteousness, and I’m gonna offtank! The plan is that as soon as we pull and the warrior digs into the marked mob, I’ll focus on the second mob in the pack and throw down a Consecrate as soon as I see ghosts appear.

It works! I am amazed!

We press on through the Crypts with our primary Warrior tank and our AoE Paladin offtank and we’re doing marvelously! Then we get to Shirak the Dead Watcher.

“Wait!” I tell the group. “Let me check WoWwiki!”

I go over the strategy with the group. How he slows casting time, how he reigns fiery death upon us, and the severe need to run away from the flames (both the person he focuses on and those who are near them).

The group is confident, everyone appeasr to understand what’s required, ATTACK!

Wipe.

Reload, run in, rest up.

Attack!

Wipe.

Reload, run in, rest up.

Attack!

Reload, run in, rest up, stock potions.

Wipe.

Attack!

Reload, run in, rest up.

“ENOUGH!” I shout (not really); “Ivellios (Priest) you’re doing great, but it simply isn’t enough, we’re still getting caught in the blast and taking too much damage. We’re doing this with two healers! Hopefully that will give us enough overhealing to compensate for slowed casting speed”. Ivellios understands, and agrees, and I don my healing gear. This time… THIS TIME… we kill the bastard. He drops a Druid helmet, and there are no Druids in the group /sigh.

So having two healers worked as the lynchpin here. I healed the Priest when he’d take some damage, he’d heal everyone else, and I’d help out with further healing whenever I could.

Now the problem is that everyone’s gear is red. “It’s okay!” I proudly exclaim, “there’s a repairman just outside the instance! Let’s go there now!”

So we take our little jaunt back out the instance and I run up to Harvon the Armorer and repair my gear.

“Um, Arcten?”

“Don’t worry guys, he’s right here, see? Just talk to him and repair your stuff!”

“Arcten…”

“Oh stop whining! Just click him and repair your gear! Ouch! Mine cost me 7g!”

“Arcten, we can’t see him…”

“Oh nonsense! He’s right here! Look! He’s just outside and to the left of the portal! Oh boy I hope I can get that 7g back by vendoring green drops here!”

“Arcten, seriously… we can’t see him.”

“What are you talking about? I’m browsing his wares right now!”

“Dude, you’re talking to thin air…”

“Lolwut?”

“Dude… thin air… he’s not there.”

“Oh damn… say… um… you guys did the Lexivus the Soul Caller quest right?”

“The who? Which quest is that?”

“Um… how about `What Book? I don’t see any book’?”

“We were working on that quest right before we came here, we couldn’t kill the guy.”

“Oh… um… damn…”

*Arcten hangs his head in shame*.


THIS is why you want to do the “What Book? I don’t See any Book!” quest. If not for the quest rewards at the end then AT LEAST for the convenience of having a ghostly repairman outside of Auchenai Crypts.

So the party runs to Allerian Stronghold, all except me and Fraq (who says nothing), but stands by the Meetingstone to with me to summon them back.

“Fraq, you don’t need a repair?”

*chirp chirp* (crickets)

“Ok, rdy 3 summon!”

“Lol, u said 3!”

So Fraq and I summon the rest of the team back. We return back into the crypts, I, for one, am expecting a full re-pop at any second. Amazingly, there are none.

We get to the room full of Skeletons; a LOT of skeletons.

Shield in hand, I mark the elite, hit one of the regulars with Exorcism, and the pack of 20 or skeletons runs toward me. Then, in the most awesomely stunning display of holy asskicking power EVER; I cut loose my Holy Wrath spell just right and then *KABOOM*! Golden lasers fly out in all directions from me and smack every single skeleton in the area *pew pew*.

Aggro from the skeletons? – CHECK!

So the skeletons, stuck on me like spooge on a dress, thwack away and take hit after hit from Retribution Aura and Consecrate after Consecrate. Righteous Fury does its job and this room is cleared.

Finally, we were at the big man himself, Exarch Maladaar! I can taste the metallic-ky goodness of The Exarch’s Protector already (tastes a bit like rusty iron, or the ends of a 9 volt battery, in case you were wondering).

Ewww... I’m talking about the plate chest piece you get from this quest… but I just realized how grossly that could be misinterpreted.

So yes, I can taste the Exarch’s Protector (kinda salty) and we go over the strategy for killing him. Essentially, he spawns these ghostly undead adds, they need to be killed quickly by the DPS folks while the tank keeps Maladaar focused. Shadow resistance helps out a lot here. Not too difficult. We handle this efficiently, but the damage and mana loss starts to add up towards the end of the fight. Then finally, Maladaar summons his last ghost, a gigantic version of himself, with Mortal Strike and we’re just about OOM and low on HP. We wipe… but not before killing Maladaar woot! My quest reads COMPLETE but I still want some loot, so the party resolves to run back in and kill the ghost version of the Exarch. So in my ghost form I run back into the instance and materialize, gritting my teeth because I just know that we’re going to have re-pops. Miraculously, there’s not a single re-pop in sight. I make my way to the end where we died and start my rezzing, the big ghost boss safely out of aggro range.

“I have to repair guys!”

Holy sh!t! It was Fraq! The Mage finally speaks!

“Allright man, hurry up, we’re all here and ready to kill the boss, I’m gonna be pissed if he de-spawns or the Exarch’s body decays, so HURRY! We’ll wait to loot for you.”

Stupid…

Sure enough, the ghost de-spawns, and I’m so tempted to loot the Exarch, fearing the decay of loot, but I see that by now, Fraq is back in the instance and passing through the skeleton room. Fraq shows up, we loot, it’s the Slippers of Serenity (which oddly enough, the Priest passes on and the Mage loots).


Anyway, I am glad to be done with place.

I didn’t get a single drop I wanted but I did finish the quest for my chest plate, which was the whole purpose of me going to begin with.

The irony here is that I handed in my quest, then bought gems to socket my new Exarch’s Protector with some STR, Crit, and AP stuff. I re-socketed the Light-Touched Breastplate I was using with tanking gems. And when all was said and done and socketed I ended up with a whopping 1% more Crit, 10 max damage, and 200-something armor… it was a distinctly anti-climactic feeling.

/sigh

Oh well, I guess now I remember now why I’ve only gone to Crypts once before.

It sucks.

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Retribution weapon rundown (Part 2: Outland)

A Retribution Paladin's damage is only as good as their weapon. We need killer weapons with awesome damage or we, quite simply, suck.

Last installment we went over what makes a great Retribution weapon. I gave you a long and well-thought out list on the best drops that came to mind (you're welcome).

This installment will be no different! But now we're onto the REALLY good stuff, Outland Loot! We will assume that since Burning Crusade was released that the pre-expansion raid dungeons are now useless and require far too much effort. I have heard that this is arguable and some would disagree with me. But at level 66 I've already replaced every single level 60 epic item I had, to include Tier 1 and 2 set pieces. All except one item, and it isn't even epic, Blackhand's Breadth (maybe that's a hint, and maybe you should chase one down too, because maybe it will last you a while in Outland before you find a suitable upgrade).

So, pre-expansion raid epics are useless! Onto the loot!

Hellreaver
Binds when picked up
Two-Hand Polearm
187 - 281 Damage
Speed 3.40
(68.8 damage per second)
+30 Strength
+27 Stamina
Durability 100 / 100
Requires Level 60
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 25 (1.1%).
Item Level 85
Source: Drop - Hellfire Ramparts [Reinforced Fel Iron Chest]
Face it, you are noob if you don't get one these, or its near-twin the Blade of Misfortune. Consider Hellreaver to be a wake up call for all Ret Paladins newly arrived in Outland. This is the first MUST HAVE item that you will need to get if you are to carve any kind of damage out out here. DO NOT STOP RUNNING HELLFIRE RAMPARTS UNTIL YOU HAVE GOTTEN ONE OF THESE (unless of course, you are lucky enough to get a Blade of Misfortune to randomly drop or want to shell out around 100g on the AH). Hellreaver is the best thing that a DPS Paladin can get when first arriving in Outland. It sets the standard, or the "jumping off" point for all other Outland weapons to follow. Once you are level 60 and have Hellreaver under your belt, you are ready to be a Retribution Paladin in Outland.

Blade of Misfortune
Binds when equipped
Two-Hand Sword
187 - 281 Damage
Speed 3.40
(68.8 damage per second)
+29 Strength
+28 Stamina
Durability 100 / 100
Requires Level 60
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 45 (2.0%).
Item Level 85
Source: Drop - Random World
Yeah, I know that I just got ranting and raving about Hellreaver. But I like this thing much better. First, Arcten is Human. So I got an ADDITIONAL 1% to my Crit Rating with this because it was a sword (so for Humans, that's an equip bonus of 3% total). The DPS is the same as Hellreaver, as well as the speed and max damage. You do miss out on 2 Attack Power by choosing this (ohnoes!). But in exchange, you get a whole 1% more Crit Rating. 1% Crit is far better than 2 Attack Power. The other drawback to this versus Hellreaver? It's a random drop that binds on equip. These things are selling for about 100g on the AH in Draenor. Hellreaver is far easier to get (or more reliable to drop anyway) and will still suit you just fine. If you have Hellreaver and get a lucky drop on this thing, I'd equip it or bank it and give it to a Ret Paladin colleague.

Hatebringer
Binds when picked up
Two-Hand Mace
212 - 318 Damage
Speed 3.60
(73.6 damage per second)
+25 Strength
+21 Stamina
Red Socket
Yellow Socket
Blue Socket
Socket Bonus: +4 Strength
Durability 100 / 100
Requires Level 63
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 22 (1.0%).
Item Level 94
Source: Drop - The Underbog [Ghaz'an]
Hellreaver or Misfortune will easily last you 3 levels. Hell, I don't think you'll get a quest reward that is an upgrade between levels 60 and 63 either. So this beast is your next upgrade. Customize with gems to your liking. I for one, enjoy getting my socket bonuses. But it's been hard for me to find blue-colored melee gems. So I usually set my Ret gear blue slots with Jagged Deep Peridot or Infused Shadow Draenite. But it's just a suggestion.

Great Earthforged Hammer
Binds when picked up
Two-Hand Mace
220 - 330 Damage
Speed 3.50
(78.6 damage per second)
+60 Stamina
Durability 100 / 100
Requires Level 65
Requires Master Hammersmith
Equip: Increases attack power by 70.
Item Level 100
Source: Recipe
I ran and ran and ran Underbogs some more until Hatebringer dropped for my other Paladin, Runic. With Arcten, however, I ran Underbogs many times and never had Hatebringer drop. Now the item from Underbogs that took me over a month to have drop with Runic was the Truth Bearer Shoulderguards. I was dreading chasing those down with Arcten. Luckily, those shoulders dropped for me on my second trip through Underbog, but Hatebringer did not. I was frustrated and already level 65 and ready to move on to other instances. But I still wanted a weapon upgrade something fierce, I just didn't want to keep running Underbogs for it. Originally Arcten was an Armorsmith, but that didn't help my weapon situation. Then I remembered that Humans get a +1% Crit with Maces and Swords (and some Hit Rating too, but the exact number escapes me). So I figured, "Hey! What the hell?" I'll take the do-it-yourself route. It worked well enough for Runic, who was a Swordsmith. So I looked over the Weaponsmithing choices again and the bind-on-pickup crafted epic weapons. I did a little bit of number crunching (theorycraft, lol) and came to the conclusion that Seal of Command would not do as much damage with the epic crafted 2h swords as it would with the 2h axes or 2h maces. Now axes are for Orcs, as they have the same weapon racial that Humans do with swords and maces. And while Orcs are pretty awesome, Arcten was not one of them. So I went with Hammersmith and gathered mats for this guy, which I thought was cooler than Hatebringer anyway (though with the right gems, the damage difference between the two is almost negligible). And seeing as how Hatebringer didn't even drop for me, it was either this or no upgrade. So I got a good level's worth out of this hammer and a bit of honor from it, though it was only one level it didn't cost me THAT much to make (I think I only spent like 15g on one of the Primals Required to craft it).

Halaani Claymore
Binds when picked up
Two-Hand Sword
231 - 347 Damage
Speed 3.60
(80.3 damage per second)
+28 Strength
+42 Stamina
Durability 85 / 85
Requires Level 66
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 27 (1.2%).
Item Level 114
Source: Vendor - Blade Merchant [Halaa]
I simply cannot believe how amazing this sword is. And it's a GREEN! And that's not even commenting on how friggin EASY it was to get. Here's how you get this sword. Step 1, get a PvP group together and take Halaa in Nagrand (or just stop in the zone once in a while to see if someone else took it). Step 2, go spend 10g at the Blade Merchant there. The Blade Merchant has 3 on stock every time she spawns, just don't be the poor fool who got in line last and didn't get to buy one (oh, of note, you might want to buy a Don Amancio's Heart while you're there, just a suggestion). Seriously, I had this beast with Runic and I made it a point to get it again with Arcten. I think I spent more money on one mat to craft the Great Earthforged Hammer (meaning a primal earth) than I did on this entire sword. Again, it's a sword, and again I have a 1% to Crit Racial with it. Yay Humans!

The Oathkeeper
Binds when equipped
Two-Hand Mace
252 - 420 Damage
Speed 3.60
(93.3 damage per second)
+35 Strength
+24 Stamina
+32 Intellect
Durability 100 / 100
Requires Level 68
Equip: Increases damage and healing done by magical spells and effects by up to 30.
Item Level 115
Vendor value: 10 Gold 53 Silver 51 Copper
Source: Drop - Random World
I had one of these on Runic and I remembered how awesome it was and so I broke down and bought one for Arcten. There's really no reason not to! Runic, on Shandris, a server with low population and (at the time) low dungeon progression had a friend buy this for him for 80g, and it was worth every bit of it (I paid him back, of course). I was pleasantly surprised with Arcten, however, to see a plethora of these on the Auction House, running for about 20g each! TWENTY gold! For our newer players, in Outland, 20g is chump change (so now go run around Stormwind asking everyone level 65+ for gold)! Anyhow... so... yeah... cheap and hellaciously awesome! Sure, it's a random world drop, and there's no guarantee that you will find one in drops or on the AH, but when I went shopping, like I said, there were three available to purchase. So it's worth checking the AH once in a while when you hit 68. Furtherore, this will likely be the LAST weapon any Retribution Paladin needs before level 70. Seriously! There's simply nothing else with that high of a max damage until then.

So congratulations! You've now hit level 70 with your Oathkeeper in Hand! What now? Well now you take up Weaponsmithing. Farm mats and chose a Bind-on-Pickup Epic weapon. You have 3 choices, and from those 3 choices, you can then craft 2 more weapons. So listed here are the first weapons of each type in their respective series. Then, you grind more mats, run some heroics, and then you'll use these weapons as materials in crafting their upgraded forms (the original weapon will be consumed as a material when you craft the next stage of the series). Some will say that each of these weapons serve a different purpose are are intended for different classes. I disagree. I think all three of these make absolutely great Retribution weapons, but there are different reasons to pick over the other, and in my opinion, I think it boils down to Racial Abilities.

Lionheart Blade
Binds when picked up
Unique
Two-Hand Sword
315 - 474 Damage
Speed 3.60
(109.6 damage per second)
+47 Strength
+42 Agility
Durability 120 / 120
Requires Level 70
Requires Master Swordsmith
Equip: Increases your chance to resist Fear effects by 5%.
Item Level 107
Source: Recipe
Use: Recipe

Thunder
Binds when picked up
Unique
Two-Hand Mace
333 - 500 Damage
Speed 3.80
(109.6 damage per second)
+37 Strength
+37 Agility
+55 Stamina
Durability 120 / 120
Requires Level 70
Requires Master Hammersmith
Item Level 107
Source: Recipe
Use: Recipe

Lunar Crescent
Binds when picked up
Unique
Two-Hand Axe
324 - 487 Damage
Speed 3.70
(109.6 damage per second)
Durability 120 / 120
Requires Level 70
Requires Master Axesmith
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 47 (2.1%).
Equip: Increases attack power by 96.
Item Level 107
Source: Recipe
Use: Recipe
Of the three of them, Lionheart Blade is the fastest and has the lowest max damage. This could potentially be problematic using Seal of Command (well, not really, since it's still an awesome weapon, and you'll dig it if you like swords). But where this weapon really shines is on a Blood Elf using Seal of Blood. It's still got sizable damage, absolutely amazing stats, and when you're doing an additional 35% of your Weapon Damage with every single swing, that damage is going to add up quickly. If you're using Seal of Blood with this, you might want to have a healer though. You can probably still survive any single encounter, maybe even 2 or 3 in a row, but you'll probably need to take breaks to bandage yourself if you're going to be using Seal of Blood all the time (it does do some damage against you in proportion to how much damage you are dishing out). Humans will also benefit from our Racial affinity for swords (screw hit rating, I'm all about that extra 1% Crit), but we don't have Seal of Blood, and I think we could better make use of Seal of Command with the next option.

Thunder, to me, is the ideal Human Retribution weapon (of the BoP craftables). Of the three, it has the slowest speed and highest max damage (and it remains proportionate like this for the next 2 stages of each of these weapons). Arguably, it's ideal for any race using Seal of Command due to its slow speed (slow especially by Outland standards) and high max damage, `nuff said.

So if Thunder is the best SoCo weapon, why bother with the Lunar Crescent? Racials, that's why! Humans get an innate 1% Crit with maces but Draenei and Dwarves receive no such thing (nor Blood Elves, but they can capitalize with the Lionheart's speed with SoB, so I'm not going to bother with them). Now at level 70, 1% Crit isn't all that special, right? I disagree! It's a whole 1 PERCENT, not "rating". Instant gratification for more crits! And the poor Draenei and Dwarves don't get that.

The Lunar Crescent has 96 Attack Power. Thunder has 37 STR, which, at 2 points Attack Power per point of STR (for Paladins), Thunder actually gives you 37 x 2 = 74 Attack Power.

Yes, 96 AP is better than 74 AP, but that will come out to very similar numbers in pure damage, once you factor in weapon damage. So, for Bind on Pickup craftable Epic weapons, I have the opinion that we Retributors should equip thusly:

Lionheart Blade: Blood Elf (with SoB)
Thunder: Human
Lunar Crescent: Draenei, Dwarf

Besides, I'd like to see some diversity among the Paladin community in terms of epic weapons. Because seeing every single Paladin running around with Thunder, is, well... kinda boring.

But wait! You don't WANT to be a Weaponsmith? What do you mean you've already worked long and hard on building up a different profession and have no intentions of switching now?

Well fine, then, be difficult. If Weaponsmithing isn't your thing, perhaps PvP is. Yes, go into Battlegrounds, find an Arena Team that is better than you are and join them.

I like PvP to a degree, but not enough to grind it out for weeks at a time in hopes of making enough honor to spend on phatty lewts. I'd rather gear up on heroics and get keyed for Karazhan and find a decent Gruul Raid. What can I say? I enjoy PvE!

Gorehowl
Binds when picked up
Two-Hand Axe
345 - 518 Damage
Speed 3.60
(119.9 damage per second)
+49 Strength
+43 Agility
+51 Stamina
Durability 120 / 120
Requires Level 70
"The axe of Grom Hellscream has sown terror across hundreds of battlefields."
Item Level 125
Source: Drop - Karazhan [Prince Malchezaar]
Lionheart Blade (with Runic) is officially the best weapon I have ever gotten. Maybe I suck, or maybe I can simply chalk it up to being on a low population server where Karazhan progression is almost nonexistant (a few months ago at least). However, if I WERE in a guild that had Karazhan on clear. I would definately roll on, spend DKP, or whatever for this axe. As Human, I would admit temptation for holding out for the next entry however (though in sheer damage dealing potential, I'm thinking Gorehowl tops this next easy, unless some hefty STR gems are thrown in there, then the difference is negligable).

Hammer of the Naaru
Binds when picked up
Two-Hand Mace
345 - 518 Damage
Speed 3.60
(119.9 damage per second)
+30 Strength
+41 Stamina
+37 Intellect
Red Socket
Red Socket
Blue Socket
Socket Bonus: +4 Intellect
Durability 120 / 120
Requires Level 70
Equip: Increases damage and healing done by magical spells and effects by up to 33.
Item Level 125
Source: Drop - Gruul's Lair [High King Maulgar]
This seems like the quintissential Ret Paladin weapon. Blizzard appears to agree, as this is what the Dreanei Paladin in Justicar Armor in the opening intro movie for Burning Crusade is wielding (lore, lol). What I like about this is the high damage. In fact, this has the same DPS and max damage as Gorehowl does. Only problem is that Gorehowl, innately, with its STR and AGI bonuses will still do more damage in the long run, even if you do enchant and socket Hammer of the Naaru for max damage. I have not sat down and gone through the bonuses of every single blue and purple-quality gem, nor do I intend to. But I'm thinking that even with Rare and Epic gems socketed in this thing to boost its damage potential, Gorehowl will still put out more pure damage. So Arcten, why get it then? Why not skip Hammer of the Naaru entirely and stick with Gorehowl? Because of your raidmates, you selfish jerk! Stop thinking only about yourself! Some raid leaders are jerks too, not all of them, but a large portion of the raid leaders I've met would say "HELL NO! GOREHOWL IS NOT GOING TO A PALADIN"! Now I may disagree with his hateful spite towards my class and my choice of loot, but I can tolerate it (to a degree), as that is somewhat the nature of the raiding beast. However, a raid leader would be hard-pressed NOT to let a Paladin roll on or spend DKP or whatever for this weapon, the INT here is actually our saving grace. I can say with certainty that I've never heard of a Paladin getting c0ckbl0cked and not allowed to roll on Hammer of the Naaru. It's still a decent weapon in it's own right, and with the proper gems and enchants, it can still put out a good chunk of damage. It's also certainly better than having nothing, in the event of the above loot c0ckbl0cking. And besides, it's a mace! +1% Crit! Yay Humans! Laugh all you want but I have a crappy Racial and I'll be DAMNED if I don't make use of it. I'd be half tempted to throw in 3 Bold Living Ruby (or 2 and a Don Amancio's Heart), for an additional gem bonus of 24 STR. That would bring Hammer of the Naaru's total STR to 54, versus Gorehowl's STR of 49.

49 x 2 = 98 Attack Power (Gorehowl)54 x 2 = 108 Attack Power (Hammer of the Naaru w/+8 STR Gems x3)


It's a not huge step over, and you still won't have the Crit % from Gorehowl's AGI, but you're still putting out about the same base damage.