Hungry for some WotLK news...

So, MMO Champion just released an update on the state of affairs as far as skills/talents in the expansion goes. All classes have had their skills and talents updated with preliminary changes, with the exception of Hunters and Paladins. One of the Alpha Devs spoke to why this is the case, as our friend Suicidal Zebra posted earlier this week with screen caps of the alpha forum conversation (here and here). Joanadark also summarized the conversation here. I told myself yesterday that it's fine that Blizz hasn't put anything meaningful as far as Paladin changes into the alpha build - I thought that it meant they were saving the hard stuff for last and wanted to devote full attention to it.

Rohan made some good points today, though, that got me thinking, and they're not points that she hasn't addressed before. Up until now, every fix that Blizzard has made for Paladins have been band-aid fixes, meant to tide the player base over until the "real" changes came and the problems were solved once and for all. Or so we think. I don't remember any CM or dev coming out and saying that rolling spell damage itemization on Ret gear into strength was a temporary thing, or anyone insinuating that giving Prot Paladins an extra stamina booster talent (Sacred Duty) was just a quick fix. To me, these are final solutions that the Blizz dev team made to address the problems. They may seem hasty or inadequate, but they were targeted solutions to specific problems. Let's look at some of the changes that came across in the last nine months:

• Protection Paladins complained that their HP pools were much lower than Feral Druids or Protection Warriors, as both scaled much faster. So what did Blizzard do? Gave Protection Paladins an extra 6% stamina boost in Sacred Duty.
• Retribution Paladins complained that the spell damage on their tier gear was a waste, as it did not affect a majority of their damage. Blizz took the spell damage and threw it all into strength, greatly boosting Ret's attack power and making the itemization points valid again.
• Retribution Paladins complained that a ten second cooldown for Crusader Strike left no room for error on CS misses to refresh Judgments. So? Blizzard drops the cooldown to six seconds.

It may seem like they're just slapping a band-aid on the problem and calling it a day, but another take on it might be that the dev team thinks they have a generally good product out there and the community is just expecting too much. So, they make minor tweaks to address specific concerns. That's how Blizzard works with every change they make. They're not in the business of broad, sweeping changes - they make incremental tweaks so as not to disturb what semblance of balance is all ready in the game.

I don't know that Ghostcrawler (the Alpha Dev in Zebra's screen caps) speaks for the entire Blizz team in saying "... there is a lot we wanted to change with them [paladins]." He might be sugar-coating it for the community, appeasing the calls for massive overhauls. What I do know, though, is that I am very disappointed that everything but Hunter and Paladin talents are open for the public's viewing pleasure. I'm feeling like the last kid picked in dodgeball right now. Are Paladins the fat kid with glasses in Blizzard's world? I guess that would make Death Knights the cool older kid that just moved into town that has the 50 inch TV in his house, since everyone is fawning over them.

Show the Paladin community a little love, Blizz! You say changes are coming - give us a taste, if only to give us something to chew on until you can bring us the main course that you just served up to everyone else at the table!

Perhaps that was a bad analogy to use, 'cuz now I'm hungry. Hmmm, what to have for lunch...

Remember the Titans? Psh, I'd rather slay them.

Blizzard announced Diablo 3 at their latest convention. Most of the Blizzard-attuned world knows this by now. I'm psyched - I played Diablo 2 and its expansion into the ground. What did I play in Diablo 2? I'll give you two hints and three guesses: my character wore plate armor, and he had auras.

All right, guess away.

... get it yet?

... okay, you caught me, I'm a Pally4Life. I had four high-level Diablo 2 characters, and two of them were Paladins - a Hammerdin and a Zealot.

However, as you might have guessed from the picture above, I'm not talking about Diablo 2 or Diablo 3 today. I'm talking about THQ's take on top-down click-fests: Titan Quest, and its expansion, Titan Quest: Immortal Throne.

For veterans of Blizzard's Diablo franchise, Titan Quest feels very familiar. You pick an initial class and allocate attribute and skill points, take care of yourself with lots of potion chugging, and click furiously with both left and right mouse buttons to trigger skills and attacks, wading through hordes of monsters. There are quests littered throughout the game, but none of them are very intricate - it's mostly "go here and kill that thing" or "go speak to this guy in some town, and oh by the way you're going there anyway." It's a very linear progression, the game leads you through the plot as long as you keep forging forward across the map.

I picked this game up last week to play with a few college friends and thus far have not been disappointed. The game is a bit more intricate than Diablo 2, having a lot more class options than its Blizzard counterpart. There are eight or so "masteries" to choose from, and you can choose two and combine them to create your own flavor of class. For example, hunting mastery plus nature mastery creates a ranger, but hunting mastery plus rogue mastery creates a brigand. Both operate similarly as they share hunting mastery, but they have defining capabilities that separate them. The class combo I chose was hunting plus nature to create a ranger - ranged attacks with limited healing capability and the ability to summon pets to aid in combat. I have wolves that keep the enemies at bay while I rain death from a distance. My friends are a spellcaster and a melee attacker, respectively, so I figured this would fit well, and I do like the archer-archetype.

The game's plot is based in mythology, taking place during the time of ancient Greece. It centers around the Greek gods' war with the Titans - the hero (player) is tasked with stopping the Titans from obtaining certain artifacts that would allow them to return to Olympus and kill the gods. The plot is not anything to rave about, and the voice acting for some of the characters is god-awful (half the Greeks sound Russian - it was kind of distracting). But, it's still a romping good time and a change of pace from slogging through dailies, PvP'ing and raiding in WoW. Plus, it'll get me in the mood for Diablo 3! ... or get me sick of top-down action games way before D3 hits shelves. I'm just about done with the normal difficulty at this point. Either way, if you're itching for some clicking, Titan Quest is worth the price. I think I got the game plus the expansion from Amazon for $20 plus shipping. Not bad at all!

Sound the Blogging Horn!

I'm a dedicated Alliance player, as you well know. I've been playing as a Human Paladin since 2006, when I first installed the game, on the same character. His name and server have changed, but it's the same avatar and the same character I started with, and the only character I've taken to max level.

"Josh, you've said this all before at least twice. Get to the point! Stop dancing around it with a re-introduction of your background, we've heard it!"

Gosh, sorry! I have a need to qualify everything I say, it's a habit.

Anyway, as an Alliance player, I only know what I play - I can speak to life as a denizen of Stormwind, chew the fat about Alliance versions of quests, and babble on for an hour about Seal of Command and its interaction with weapon speed and damage range. What I cannot talk about with any semblance of accuracy or personal experience is life on the other side of the faction line - I grab my sword and fight the Horde, you won't catch me saying "Blood and Thunder" or "For the Horde" any time soon. But, unlike Holy or Protection specs, Retribution is a different animal for Horde Paladins. The use of the racial ability Seal of Blood instead of the talent ability Seal of Command as a raid DPS seal changes many things about effective skill rotations, gearing, and the like.

With that in mind, I'd like to add another author to the Eye for an Eye team. If you've been itching to share your thoughts about Retribution Paladins but don't want to maintain a blog all your own, here's your chance to speak to a (small) readership without the fuss and muss of going it solo!

What am I looking for in an E4AE contributor?

• Candidates must have a level 70 Blood Elf Paladin whom he or she plays as his or her main.


• Paladin must be played as Retribution spec for a majority of play time.


• Candidates must have at least deep tier 5 level raid experience, with a strong preference for deep tier 6 or Sunwell experience. This is to counter-balance anything I might post with regard to upper tier raiding, so that any nuances of Horde raids or the Blood Elf experience can be fleshed out, and vice versa for Alliance raiding.


• A command of the English language is a must. It does not have to be the candidate's native tongue, but fluent written English is required as this blog is primarily read by English-speakers.


• An affinity for investigation and explanation, and a curious nature are big pluses. A main focus of this blog is shining light in dark places when it comes to the mysteries of how to gear/spec/play a Retribution Paladin, and oftentimes how to min/max a Ret Paladin in a raid environment. Doing a little digging on forums, WoW-related fansites, and other such resources is part of the experience.


• Higher-rating (1900+) arena experience as Retribution would be highly desirable, so that the PvP'ers out there can get a window into life as a serious arena-competitor.

Some among you are thinking "Feh, if I wanted to blog about Ret Paladins, I'd make my own blogspot site! What would joining E4AE do for me that my own blog wouldn't?"

Well, since you asked...

• You would be afforded carte blanche to post as much or as little you like as long as some effort goes into blog posts with regards to veracity of information, linking to reference sites, and the occasional related image embed. There would be very little expectation/pressure from me or the readership to post on a regular basis. Of course, if you wanted to post regularly, I'm sure no one involved would mind!


• Full authorship status would be granted - I'd put your very own "About the Author" section on the front page and separate it from both myself and the "Welcome" message, so you would establish your own identity on the blog and be instantly introduced to the community.


• You get to address a semi-established readership! E4AE averages between 150 and 300 unique page loads per weekday (when most of my material gets published), which means you would be able to dive head-first into the blogosphere and speak to an audience without having to build a reputation first.


• You wouldn't have to build your own blog! This could be seen as a plus or a minus depending on how you view it, but you wouldn't have to go through the hassle of securing your own web space or formatting pages (unless you want to do that for E4AE, in which I'd be very happy to hear your suggestions. I'm an HTML noob and am generally too busy to fiddle with the coding).

Interested? Here's what you do. Send me an e-mail via the link at the top right of the page with your character's name, server, and armory link, and give me a little background on you and your character - who you are, how long you've been playing WoW/your current main, why you're interested in joining E4AE, and any other pertinent information you feel would give me insight into the zen of you. After that's written up, include a sample write-up for an article entitled "Boss Spotlight: Leotheras the Blind." You don't necessarily have to model it on my Kaz'rogal write-up as far as format goes - I'd like the article to display your usual writing tone, your knowledge of Retribution Paladin in raids, and your descriptive & explanatory prowess. Images are not necessary for the sample, but appropriate in-line linkage for reference sites are encouraged and appreciated.

If you have any questions, please direct them to me via e-mail, or send me a quick e-mail requesting my AIM screen name for further discussion.

I look forward to your e-mail!

Boss Spotlight: Kaz'rogal

There are some raid encounters that play to a Retribution Paladin's strengths, and some that plain make life a living hell. If you've been following along with this blog and think you have a handle on the mechanics of Ret, you've got a grasp of the simple stuff and could probably do pretty decent damage on bosses like Anetheron or Morogrim Tidewalker (assuming you have appropriate level gear for the task). Those fights are tuned so that the melee DPS'ers really don't have to move and they can really get into a groove with their skill rotations.

Other fights in the game though, they are not as nice to the Ret Paladins. Today, we'll be examining the doomguard boss Kaz'rogal in the Caverns of Time: Battle for Mount Hyjal raid instance.

For veterans of vanilla WoW or explorers of the upper reaches of Hellfire Peninsula, Kaz'rogal will seem very familiar. He is very similar to the current world boss Doom Lord Kazzak, another Burning Legion doomguard who resides in Hellfire Peninsula, and his former form of Lord Kazzak when he stalked the Blasted Lands.

Why are we talking about this boss?
Kaz'rogal is a special fight of note for Ret Paladins because of one ability: the Mark of Kaz'rogal. Besides this ability, Kaz'rogal does not do anything special. He hits fairly hard, does a stomp that hurts anyone in melee range, cleaves anyone in front of him, throws a Cripple debuff around that's bothersome but not game-breaking. The Mark of Kaz'rogal, however, is a big deal. This ability hits everyone in the raid at certain intervals in the fight, and drains 600 mana per second for 5 seconds. That's 3000 mana gone in two blinks of the eye. How much mana do you have in a raid? 5000? 6000? And how much do you use just doing your regular rotation with Judgement of Wisdom on the boss?

The nature of Paladin mana conservation makes it very difficult to regain mana once it's gone, and the Retribution cycle (when pushed into high DPS mode) can suck the user dry even when chain-potioning. Special precautions must be taken for the Kaz'rogal fight in order to not go OOM (out of mana), especially considering what happens if you do - you explode for ~10k shadow damage on everyone around you.

What to do when facing Kaz'rogal
There are two schools of thought when battling this baddie - kill him before he drains you, or weather the drains with resist gear. The Mark of Kaz'rogal is a shadow-based debuff, and is resistable if you wear a bit of shadow resist gear. It would be prudent to wear ~100 shadow resist when learning the fight - cape and necklace are easy spots to use for this. The BT attunement quest necklace, [Medallion of Karabor], gets you halfway there, and wearing a [Night's End] with a shadow resist enchant can cover the rest. If you're going for maximum damage against Kaz'rogal and trying to kill him before he drains you, that should be enough resist gear. If you are trying for a bit more longevity, put on some extra resist gear, greenies or Shahraz resist gear, whatever you have. Don't know who Shahraz is? She's a shadow-based boss deep in Black Temple. You'll run into her later. I generally put on max resist gear (365 with Prayer of Shadow Resistance) for Kaz'rogal because I'm a scaredy-cat.

Whether you've got 0, 100, or 365 resist, the method to managing your cooldowns is the same against this boss. You will want to blow your Avenging Wrath as early as possible - as soon as Kaz'rogal is positioned and you have a 3-stack of Vengeance, hit it. This will get your Forbearance out of the way for later. Watch your mana pool intently - if you ever dip below 3k with no way to regain mana or actively avoid a Mark outside of Judgement of Wisdom, stop attack and run away. At the first Mark, if you get the debuff, potion once you have a 3k deficit. At the second Mark, your Forbearance should be gone. If you get the debuff, Divine Shield immediately to avoid any mana drain. At the third debuff, your mana potions will most likely be off cooldown, so use one to counteract the mana drain.

Hopefully, you're wearing a bit of shadow resist and you will resist a few debuffs so you can use your potions on your terms. However, it's random, so you just have to be aware and alert. For this fight, it would most likely be best to use Consecration rank 1 instead of a higher rank, just to save some mana.