So it's been a month. Yeah.
Last Poll: Death Knights. Yay or Nay?
Yay! (44%)
Nay! (22%)
Meh, don't care. (33%)
I wasn't terribly fond of DK's either, and I'm still not enthused about them, but I will say they have undeniably the coolest starting area in the history of EVER.
**Edit**
There will be a new poll up when I can get it to work. For some reason, Blogger won't let me change my layout right now. Very weird.
**Edit^2**
So Blogspot ate some of my blog and I had no idea. Fixed.
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So as a side note, I was at Blizzcon this past weekend. If you saw the crazy girl with the "I <3 Eyonix" sign, well, that was me. I'll have a more detailed update on Blizzcon probably tomorrow. But for today, I'd like to talk about the new patch.
So while I'm relatively upset that I was not specced Retribution for raiding for patch day (and, indeed, have been Protection for a few weeks now due to our regular Prot Pally being MIA), it was nice that tanking was actually fun again. Especially when I'm running around pulling threat off the T6 warrior. There's something incredibly satisfying about that. I'm a lot more excited, however, to get a chance to raid as Retribution with all the new changes. I greatly wish I could do so tomorrow, but with our guild looking at Illidan and me being one of the few with tank gear AND FR gear... well, I'm not really going to get the chance.
A guildmate has already leveled his Inscription up to about 300 (or at least close to that before I logged off), and my own level 15 Rogue alt already has 90-some Inscription herself. I'm liking the flow of the new profession. Even as you level up through it, old herbs and low level things are still useful to you. I think that's kinda cool.
After our raid this evening, a group of us decided to pay good old Onyxia a visit, so those of us who never raided pre-TBC could get the achievement. It was fun tanking her - I'd personally never seen the encounter (since I never hit 60 before TBC), so it was really cool. The 20g reward just for killing her was nice too.
Too bad the Pally T2 didn't drop. I would've liked to say I had some of it. =P Though I'm sure we'll go and kill her for loot weekly now... It takes all of ten minutes. Tomorrow, we plan on getting the Leeeeeeeroooooy! Achievement. Should be fun. =D
Admittedly, I was very apprehensive about how we'd operate tonight with the new patch. Everyone was scrambling at raid time to put together their talents, figure out their new rotations, and generally organize themselves. I thought the Holy Paladins would trip up on their healing since they operate so differently now. I found myself giving advice on how to use Beacon of Light, simply due to the fact I've been more informed of the patch notes and changes than my guildies have been (I never realized how much more dedicated a fan I am to this game than the typical player is). It was kind of nice being a go-to person for information tonight; possibly because it's all too often that I'm just "that girl who plays" and not really considered an informed or important figure. Not being an officer in the new guild has a lot to do with that, though I suppose if our usual pally tank keeps being MIA, I may find myself upgraded sooner rather than later.
While I'm sad we didn't down Council legitimately (I.E. before the 30% nerf and the ridiculous DPS people are putting out now), it was rather awe-inspiring to just plow through BT while barely batting an eye. It took us 49 seconds to down Shade of Akama - I only had two adds on me in the center by the time they moved in on him. I think we only got three people killed on Gorefiend, simply from them getting the debuff (and the last guy's timer was nowhere near up by the time Gorefiend hit the ground).
This patch and the upcoming expansion are amazing leaps and bounds for the game, especially for Paladins. If you've lost interest in your class, Patch 3.0 brings a ton of new stuff to the table that makes you excited about the game again. And really, as a devoted fan, I could hardly ask for more.
Showing posts with label protection. Show all posts
Showing posts with label protection. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Unnannounced Hiatus
Hello everyone.
Sorry to have been MIA for so long, but my blog has had to sit on the bottom of the pile lately. I have only three weeks until I graduate, a convention this weekend, and an impending move in April that I still need to plan for. While I have a few articles written out in my notebooks, it has been difficult to find the time to transcribe them.
In addition, these posts will no longer be cross-posted from Gathering Gamers. As I've had to take this hiatus, it didn't make much sense for me to keep taking up their time working for them. However, I do still encourage everyone to check out their site. It's a nifty little gaming community, and it would be really cool to see it grow into something much grander.
In the news of what I've been doing in WoW, I have respecced and started raiding as well as PvPing as Retribution. This is mostly due to the demands of raiding and having little place for multiple tanks, so I volunteered to step down and play another role for a while. However, I haven't given up on tanking and it's still my knowledge forte (if I do say so myself), as well as what makes me really love the game. I hope to respec back relatively soon. =)
Just as a taste, here's a few of the topic titles I have coming up:
Alliance vs. Horde - The upcoming struggle
RP Servers - Are they dead?
PvP Servers - To gank or not to gank?
90% of all statistics are made up - "Welfare Epics"
I hope that gives everyone something to look forward to!
Sorry to have been MIA for so long, but my blog has had to sit on the bottom of the pile lately. I have only three weeks until I graduate, a convention this weekend, and an impending move in April that I still need to plan for. While I have a few articles written out in my notebooks, it has been difficult to find the time to transcribe them.
In addition, these posts will no longer be cross-posted from Gathering Gamers. As I've had to take this hiatus, it didn't make much sense for me to keep taking up their time working for them. However, I do still encourage everyone to check out their site. It's a nifty little gaming community, and it would be really cool to see it grow into something much grander.
In the news of what I've been doing in WoW, I have respecced and started raiding as well as PvPing as Retribution. This is mostly due to the demands of raiding and having little place for multiple tanks, so I volunteered to step down and play another role for a while. However, I haven't given up on tanking and it's still my knowledge forte (if I do say so myself), as well as what makes me really love the game. I hope to respec back relatively soon. =)
Just as a taste, here's a few of the topic titles I have coming up:
Alliance vs. Horde - The upcoming struggle
RP Servers - Are they dead?
PvP Servers - To gank or not to gank?
90% of all statistics are made up - "Welfare Epics"
I hope that gives everyone something to look forward to!
Friday, January 18, 2008
Battleground's Holy Warriors
Cross-Posted from Gathering Gamers.
So naturally, as soon as I say I'm going to do something, I get sick and don't touch a computer for a few days. Naturally. Now that I'm feeling better though, I'll put up what I intended to have on Tuesday. So here we go.
You've heard everyone else say it before: Protection is not a PvP spec. And to an extent, I agree. In arenas, we have no competitive place. But in Battlegrounds, a whole other beast, there's a time to take up your shield and laugh in the face of your enemies.
Let's start with Warsong Gulch. There are three roles any player can take: Offense, Defense, and Flag Running. As a Protection Paladin, you can fulfill two of these three roles.
As Defense, while your damage is sub-par, you have a few good tools to keep a flag runner slowed down enough to have your teammates clean up. Avenger's Shield will slow their movement speed, Judgement of Justice will halt their speed boosts, and of course Hammer of Justice will stop them in their tracks. In addition, standing atop the flag and keeping a Rank 1 Consecration down will alert you to any stealthers trying to snag the flag without wasting much mana.
As a flag-runner, while you're not going to have a speed boost from your class (unless you've taken Pursuit of Justice in the Retribution tree), your Cleanse and Blessing of Freedom will almost guarantee you won't be stopped or slowed down. Even if you're being chased down by half of the opposing team, if you have a competent healer following you, you'll be fine. Sheer hit points and a high amount of armor means they have a lot to plow through before you go down.
Next, we have Arathi Basin. Admittedly, this is my least favorite battleground (when once upon a time, it was my favorite), mostly because it seems to be the most frequently pre-rolled. There are only two roles for an individual to fulfill here: Offense and Defense. A tankadin really can only act on one of these.
Naturally, this would be defense. Down-ranking Consecration again proves useful to keep people from snatching nodes, and even if you have 4 or 5 people on you, you'll have enough survivability to hold them off until reinforcements arrive.
As for the other role, the best you'll likely provide in offense is a huge annoyance or a good distraction. Toss some heals around; if the enemy's on you and not on the actual healers or damage dealers, then you're being effective. Just never expect a lot of killing blows when all is said and done.
Next is everyone's old favorite, Alterac Valley. For a long time, I had no experience with this battleground, as I never had a character of level. And yet, once Prettyboi could participate, leveling up to seventy was so much more important. Once the battleground dailies came about, I finally had a reason to explore it. I found that this is, hands down, the best place for a Protection Paladin.
While you could play the defense card like in the other battlegrounds (and be just as effective as in those places), there are other things you could be doing on the offensive where you will prove the most useful. Whether it's consecrating points and holding off the guards while someone else captures it, or tanking the commander NPC's, you are *needed* on the front lines. And it's wonderfully refreshing! AV, dare I say, has the most situations for a Paladin tank to shine. Not just any tank, either; having many patrols of 3-4 NPCs roaming around should be hint enough.
Finally, we have Eye of the Storm. As a hybrid of Warsong Gulch and Arathi Basin, you'll find all the same jobs here. Flag carrying, node guarding, flag guarding... Though by far, the most unique (and personally satisfying) experience is sniping with Avenger's Shield at the Blood Elf Tower. No, really. Try it sometime. It's hilarious.
While people will argue (and generally accurately) that Protection is not a PvP spec, that does not mean we lack a place within the PvP realms. As I said when I talked about Arenas, no, you're not going to be some PvP all-star, and don't expect that. However, don't let people tell you that you're useless, either.
So naturally, as soon as I say I'm going to do something, I get sick and don't touch a computer for a few days. Naturally. Now that I'm feeling better though, I'll put up what I intended to have on Tuesday. So here we go.
You've heard everyone else say it before: Protection is not a PvP spec. And to an extent, I agree. In arenas, we have no competitive place. But in Battlegrounds, a whole other beast, there's a time to take up your shield and laugh in the face of your enemies.
Let's start with Warsong Gulch. There are three roles any player can take: Offense, Defense, and Flag Running. As a Protection Paladin, you can fulfill two of these three roles.
As Defense, while your damage is sub-par, you have a few good tools to keep a flag runner slowed down enough to have your teammates clean up. Avenger's Shield will slow their movement speed, Judgement of Justice will halt their speed boosts, and of course Hammer of Justice will stop them in their tracks. In addition, standing atop the flag and keeping a Rank 1 Consecration down will alert you to any stealthers trying to snag the flag without wasting much mana.
As a flag-runner, while you're not going to have a speed boost from your class (unless you've taken Pursuit of Justice in the Retribution tree), your Cleanse and Blessing of Freedom will almost guarantee you won't be stopped or slowed down. Even if you're being chased down by half of the opposing team, if you have a competent healer following you, you'll be fine. Sheer hit points and a high amount of armor means they have a lot to plow through before you go down.
Next, we have Arathi Basin. Admittedly, this is my least favorite battleground (when once upon a time, it was my favorite), mostly because it seems to be the most frequently pre-rolled. There are only two roles for an individual to fulfill here: Offense and Defense. A tankadin really can only act on one of these.
Naturally, this would be defense. Down-ranking Consecration again proves useful to keep people from snatching nodes, and even if you have 4 or 5 people on you, you'll have enough survivability to hold them off until reinforcements arrive.
As for the other role, the best you'll likely provide in offense is a huge annoyance or a good distraction. Toss some heals around; if the enemy's on you and not on the actual healers or damage dealers, then you're being effective. Just never expect a lot of killing blows when all is said and done.
Next is everyone's old favorite, Alterac Valley. For a long time, I had no experience with this battleground, as I never had a character of level. And yet, once Prettyboi could participate, leveling up to seventy was so much more important. Once the battleground dailies came about, I finally had a reason to explore it. I found that this is, hands down, the best place for a Protection Paladin.
While you could play the defense card like in the other battlegrounds (and be just as effective as in those places), there are other things you could be doing on the offensive where you will prove the most useful. Whether it's consecrating points and holding off the guards while someone else captures it, or tanking the commander NPC's, you are *needed* on the front lines. And it's wonderfully refreshing! AV, dare I say, has the most situations for a Paladin tank to shine. Not just any tank, either; having many patrols of 3-4 NPCs roaming around should be hint enough.
Finally, we have Eye of the Storm. As a hybrid of Warsong Gulch and Arathi Basin, you'll find all the same jobs here. Flag carrying, node guarding, flag guarding... Though by far, the most unique (and personally satisfying) experience is sniping with Avenger's Shield at the Blood Elf Tower. No, really. Try it sometime. It's hilarious.
While people will argue (and generally accurately) that Protection is not a PvP spec, that does not mean we lack a place within the PvP realms. As I said when I talked about Arenas, no, you're not going to be some PvP all-star, and don't expect that. However, don't let people tell you that you're useless, either.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Arena-ing as a Tankadin: Futile but Fun
(Crossposted from http://myworld.creativegamingevents.com/blogs_view.php?id=583 )
Once again, I'm going to take a moment to apologize for my lengthy absence. I've already given the reasons, so I'll just go ahead and plow on to today's topic.
Anytime you log on to do your Arena-ing for the week, it's rare that you'll run into a Tankadin during your battles. We simply aren't built for handling Arenas; all the defense rating we built up is going to be next to useless, and if we don't have resilience gear, we'll be as easy to push over as a clothie against the more serious teams. However, this doesn't mean you can't do it, and even more importantly, that you can't have fun doing it.
First off, if you're going to do it at all, know now that you CANNOT take it seriously. Do not expect to get a high rating, and if you breach 1500 points after the first couple weeks of a season, consider yourself lucky. Being a Tankadin in Arena is a serious detriment to your team, so make sure the people who have invited you (or that you have invited) know beforehand your intentions. It's not going to be easy.
Personally, I do it for good old "S&G's." I think it's kind of hilarious when the warriors or rogues charge me from across the map and end up killing themselves on all my defensive abilities because they thought I was a Holy paladin. I also have a hell of a lot more survivability than my rogue counterpart does in my 2v2, or even than the feral druid in my 3v3. Mostly due to sheer hit points, dodge, parry, and block rating. (Ardent Defender is really aggravating for an opponent too.)
Now for the actual advice part. Let's break this down into equipment advice, abilities, other class compliments, and tactics.
Equipment Advice:
-Stam, stam, and more stam. This is what you have going for you. Stack stam and resilience gems in any slots you might have if you're going to be taking this "seriously."
-Arena gear: Get the "prot" set. I haven't done this myself yet (what can I say, I'm lazy and don't PvP often), but with the availability now of Season 1 gear, you might as well go grind out the honor and stack yourself up. The resilience will only increase your survivability, and that's the game you're playing in Arenas. The extra spell damage will be nice too, since you'll actually be able to dole out some damage on those foolish enough to actually come after you.
-Prioritize a little more Int: This won't be hard with the arena sets, since they provide Int, but remember that it's unlikely someone's going to be healing you in arena (and if anything, you'll be the back-up healer), so your mana regeneration is going to suck (or be non-existent). Given that you can say "screw it" to defense and a lot more of the mitigation abilities, this will be relatively easy to do.
Key Abilities:
Blessing of Sanctuary - This, in my honest opinion, will be your strongest blessing for Arenas. What you want to do is draw people TO you. A good 90% of teams will not realize that you are, in fact, protection-specced unless they take a real good look at your buffs and are familiar with protection paladins themselves. (Though they likely will notice something is up when they see how small your mana pool is, and may deem you Retribution instead.) The trick of the game is to get them to hit you and for you to survive it, so stacking all your passive damage effects is a must.
Retribution Aura - Again, stacking passive damage. Use it; all your other auras will be relatively useless unless you're in a 5v5 with a group of casters (Then go ahead and use Concentration Aura). Devotion won't give you enough damage reduction to be worth it, and the resistance auras generally don't seem to help much. Crusader Aura is kind of fun to toss up if you manage to get mounted; I've had a lot of infuriated opponents chase me around the arena trying to get a lock on me.
Righteous Fury - If you're prot specc'd and understand the spec, you know why you should have this up. Obviously it's not for threat generation, but the 6% less damage against EVERYTHING will be your best friend, especially against those spell casters who you have so little defense against. Costly to put back up in battle, though, so I'd only cast it at the beginning, or later if you have a lot of mana or are getting a lot of heals. It's also nice to have as a dispell buffer so your opponents wipe that out first rather than your blessings or any other buffs your team might have given you.
Avenger's Shield - This is mighty useful in Arena, especially when your enemy decides you (or your other teammates) are a force to be reckoned with and try to run away. Again, the element of surprise is key; not only does it look like a heal spell while you're casting it (for the whole 1.5 seconds), but no one's really going to expect to be hit with a flying shield in an Arena match, so they probably won't have anymore cooldowns to blow when running away, leaving your daze in effect. If you have a lot of spell damage stacked, this can also be one hell of a hard hitter, especially if you can manage to bounce it off multiple opponents. Very nice.
Consecration - The Stealth finder. Down-rank this and have fun walking around finding the stealthers before they find you. You stop caring about the damage when it's only costing you about 100 mana per cast.
Seals: Generally, I'll judge Crusader and go to town with Seal of Blood (as a Blood Elf) or Seal of Righteousness. Judging Seal of Light can be fun, especially if you have some quick melee hitters on your team (like rogues, feral druids, or fury warriors). Usually, though, you're not worried about doing anything else but providing support. Holding up Seal of Justice and judging it can be good times too; slow down their movement and stun casters. Seal of Wisdom I've only used in one fight ever, and I'll explain that one later.
Hammer of Justice: Your one and only stun (barring Seal of Justice, but it's so unreliable it doesn't really count). Know it, love it, use it for interrupts. Seriously, the best thing you can do to support your team is keep casters busy. They'll likely be after you anyway once they figure out you're not what you appear to be, and shutting down the healer is the most important part of any Arena match. Doing it when they're about to get a big heal off is just a little self-satisfaction icing on the cake.
Hammer of Wrath: Too much fun, really. Try to spam this as much as possible if your opponent gets under 20%. It's one of the few ways for you to do a lot of damage really quickly.
Avenging Wrath: This is for going all out on someone, but it's not something I use all that much since it instigates the Forbearance cooldown. I'd avoid usage, especially early on, as you'll likely need to bubble later once they figure out you're spell vulnerable.
Racial Abilities: As I'm a Blood Elf and I've never played a paladin of another class, I'll be sorely lacking in this information. Arcane Torrent is, by far, the most useful racial you could have as a paladin in PvP. It gives you another interrupt, and against all-caster arena teams, you will be the bane of their existence (Well, every 2 minutes anyway). The Drenai's Gift of the Naaru ability is really nice to toss up, though I'd always expend healing on your teammates before yourself (you should have the hit points to deal with it anyway, and it's likely anyone else on your team will be squishier than you). A Dwarf's Stoneform is amazing for cleansing yourself of those nasty bleed effects you normally can't get rid of otherwise, so save it for the Rogue/Warrior/Druid abilities that stack up. Lastly, there's the Human Perception ability; yet another way for you to catch stealthers, and let you place perhaps a full-rank consecration on top of the unsuspecting ones.
Class Compliments:
In all reality, since you're likely not taking this seriously anyway, play with whomever you want. The point is, after all, to have fun with it. One way or the other, you're going to end up with silly stories and a lot of interesting memories. But, for those of you wanting to maybe accomplish a little more, I'll tell you what's worked for me.
2v2
My 2v2 partner is a rogue, and this works out quite well. He's hemo-specc'd, and everyone assumes I'm Holy and charges after me. During the confusion and frustration where they discover I am not a healer, he'll have already toasted a clothie or at least stun-locked their healer. If I can keep the melee busy, he'll sneak up and kill the ranged, and that works out rather lovely.
I would therefore then assume that a feral-specc'd druid in this role would function equally well. If you're playing the decoy game like I do, you want a stealther in your group.
I haven't tried out much else (there's no one else in our 2v2, and I can't blame them; our rating was terrible last season XD); if you have an obvious healer, they'll go kill them first. The theory could work with a warrior. They'll probably still assume you're Holy and go after you. If you have any ranged, though, it's probably likely they'll try to kill the ranged guy first; even if you WERE a healer, the ranged person is a helluva a lot squishier and likely to get burst-down. At this point, blow what mana you have on keeping them alive (or Blessing of Protection them). You want them coming after you; end of story.
3v3
Again, I keep stealthers about me. We're a Feral druid/Hemo rogue/Prot pally combination, and boy does it work out nicely. With both of them in stealth, everyone comes after me and they have the opportunity to sneak up and just utterly tear apart one of their team. Once we get them down to 2 opponents, the win is pretty inevitable.
If you're not going this option, then I'd take people who can disable others; a mage and a warlock with a prot pally would be interesting, with Polymorph on one guy and a Fel Hunter on a caster. But again; you're likely to be a detriment. You don't do a lot of damage, and if your casters are the ones doing everything, the other team's going to catch on pretty quickly.
5v5
I have the least experience here. I've only done a few, and I respecc'd Holy for a couple of the matches. There honestly isn't a whole lot of room for a Prot pally in 5v5. The chaos is ultimate, though you may benefit your team by taking a lot of the crowd control from the other side, or being single targetted first (earning your team a little head start on killing someone), forcing them to burn through your massive amount of hit points.
5v5's are so varied that I can't honestly offer much support advice; after all, you *are* the support. I'd say start out as a healer in 5v5 (even in Prot gear; just spam Flash of Light), and with two healers on whoever is being single-targetted, or you being forced into crowd control over your true healer, you'll have done a lot right there.
Tactics
I've offered a lot of my tactics already, but here's a quick run-down again, as well as advice on what classes will screw you up and who to look out for.
-Be the Decoy. This is going to be your best bet; your job in Arena is to soak up the damage that could otherwise be directed onto your teammates. It's like tanking in that regard; except your enemy has a wild aggro bar that you can't hold. Play the healer for a while, get them on you, and let the passive damage do the rest of the work.
-Stack spell damage. If you want to be dealing damage, stack spell damage over everything else. Your passive damage abilities will be dealing the most when you're in the ideal situation, and there's nothing quite like throwing 800+ Avenger's Shields on a regular basis. (I keep hoping I'll crit for 2k someday. =O )
-Toast Warlock Pets. ESPECIALLY succubus pets. Most others will tell you to leave them be, but this is what'll kill you in Arenas as a paladin. Succubi in particular have a lot less health than other Warlock pets, and your Exorcism will make quick work of them. And if you happen to have a Fel Hunter against you, drag it away from the rest of your casters in the group and take it out yourself. It's better to have you spell-locked than your healer or your major burst damage mage spell-locked.
-Leave Hunter pets alone. If there's a pet to leave alone, it would be the hunter's. The damage they do in the long run is negligible and a the hunter himself is a lot more dangerous (especially if he has Silencing Shot).
-Buff your party members. A no brainer, but hey, I guess it couldn't hurt to mention. Don't bother with greater blessings; Arena matches shouldn't last longer than 10 minutes, and if they do, rebuffing in combat isn't hard if you have the Pally Power add-on (WHICH EVERY PALADIN SHOULD, RAWR, ).
-Have fun. Don't get frustrated if you don't win; you shouldn't be expecting to win! Prot is entirely inferior in arenas, and my advice is only going to help you aggravate the other side and maybe win every once in a while a little more often. Prot paladins are a PvE spec, and you should never expect them to excel in anything other than what they are good at; tanking.
I'd like to leave everyone with a hilarious little treat; sometime last week before Thanksgiving, I popped on to do my 2v2 with my good buddy Kaitou. I'm still wondering if I set a record or something, because one of our matches lasted an hour and six minutes.
Best 7 point win EVER
There's the screenshot. It was basically about an hour of me and a feral druid running around in circles, disabling the other so we could heal, then running around in circles some more. Finally, the druid thought he might be able to burst me down by exiting combat, stealthing, and pouncing me. So I worked my way over to Kaitou, bubbled, and rezzed him. We won shortly thereafter.
Remember, Prot paladins aren't GOOD in arena. But... they aren't always bad either. ;)
Once again, I'm going to take a moment to apologize for my lengthy absence. I've already given the reasons, so I'll just go ahead and plow on to today's topic.
Anytime you log on to do your Arena-ing for the week, it's rare that you'll run into a Tankadin during your battles. We simply aren't built for handling Arenas; all the defense rating we built up is going to be next to useless, and if we don't have resilience gear, we'll be as easy to push over as a clothie against the more serious teams. However, this doesn't mean you can't do it, and even more importantly, that you can't have fun doing it.
First off, if you're going to do it at all, know now that you CANNOT take it seriously. Do not expect to get a high rating, and if you breach 1500 points after the first couple weeks of a season, consider yourself lucky. Being a Tankadin in Arena is a serious detriment to your team, so make sure the people who have invited you (or that you have invited) know beforehand your intentions. It's not going to be easy.
Personally, I do it for good old "S&G's." I think it's kind of hilarious when the warriors or rogues charge me from across the map and end up killing themselves on all my defensive abilities because they thought I was a Holy paladin. I also have a hell of a lot more survivability than my rogue counterpart does in my 2v2, or even than the feral druid in my 3v3. Mostly due to sheer hit points, dodge, parry, and block rating. (Ardent Defender is really aggravating for an opponent too.)
Now for the actual advice part. Let's break this down into equipment advice, abilities, other class compliments, and tactics.
Equipment Advice:
-Stam, stam, and more stam. This is what you have going for you. Stack stam and resilience gems in any slots you might have if you're going to be taking this "seriously."
-Arena gear: Get the "prot" set. I haven't done this myself yet (what can I say, I'm lazy and don't PvP often), but with the availability now of Season 1 gear, you might as well go grind out the honor and stack yourself up. The resilience will only increase your survivability, and that's the game you're playing in Arenas. The extra spell damage will be nice too, since you'll actually be able to dole out some damage on those foolish enough to actually come after you.
-Prioritize a little more Int: This won't be hard with the arena sets, since they provide Int, but remember that it's unlikely someone's going to be healing you in arena (and if anything, you'll be the back-up healer), so your mana regeneration is going to suck (or be non-existent). Given that you can say "screw it" to defense and a lot more of the mitigation abilities, this will be relatively easy to do.
Key Abilities:
Blessing of Sanctuary - This, in my honest opinion, will be your strongest blessing for Arenas. What you want to do is draw people TO you. A good 90% of teams will not realize that you are, in fact, protection-specced unless they take a real good look at your buffs and are familiar with protection paladins themselves. (Though they likely will notice something is up when they see how small your mana pool is, and may deem you Retribution instead.) The trick of the game is to get them to hit you and for you to survive it, so stacking all your passive damage effects is a must.
Retribution Aura - Again, stacking passive damage. Use it; all your other auras will be relatively useless unless you're in a 5v5 with a group of casters (Then go ahead and use Concentration Aura). Devotion won't give you enough damage reduction to be worth it, and the resistance auras generally don't seem to help much. Crusader Aura is kind of fun to toss up if you manage to get mounted; I've had a lot of infuriated opponents chase me around the arena trying to get a lock on me.
Righteous Fury - If you're prot specc'd and understand the spec, you know why you should have this up. Obviously it's not for threat generation, but the 6% less damage against EVERYTHING will be your best friend, especially against those spell casters who you have so little defense against. Costly to put back up in battle, though, so I'd only cast it at the beginning, or later if you have a lot of mana or are getting a lot of heals. It's also nice to have as a dispell buffer so your opponents wipe that out first rather than your blessings or any other buffs your team might have given you.
Avenger's Shield - This is mighty useful in Arena, especially when your enemy decides you (or your other teammates) are a force to be reckoned with and try to run away. Again, the element of surprise is key; not only does it look like a heal spell while you're casting it (for the whole 1.5 seconds), but no one's really going to expect to be hit with a flying shield in an Arena match, so they probably won't have anymore cooldowns to blow when running away, leaving your daze in effect. If you have a lot of spell damage stacked, this can also be one hell of a hard hitter, especially if you can manage to bounce it off multiple opponents. Very nice.
Consecration - The Stealth finder. Down-rank this and have fun walking around finding the stealthers before they find you. You stop caring about the damage when it's only costing you about 100 mana per cast.
Seals: Generally, I'll judge Crusader and go to town with Seal of Blood (as a Blood Elf) or Seal of Righteousness. Judging Seal of Light can be fun, especially if you have some quick melee hitters on your team (like rogues, feral druids, or fury warriors). Usually, though, you're not worried about doing anything else but providing support. Holding up Seal of Justice and judging it can be good times too; slow down their movement and stun casters. Seal of Wisdom I've only used in one fight ever, and I'll explain that one later.
Hammer of Justice: Your one and only stun (barring Seal of Justice, but it's so unreliable it doesn't really count). Know it, love it, use it for interrupts. Seriously, the best thing you can do to support your team is keep casters busy. They'll likely be after you anyway once they figure out you're not what you appear to be, and shutting down the healer is the most important part of any Arena match. Doing it when they're about to get a big heal off is just a little self-satisfaction icing on the cake.
Hammer of Wrath: Too much fun, really. Try to spam this as much as possible if your opponent gets under 20%. It's one of the few ways for you to do a lot of damage really quickly.
Avenging Wrath: This is for going all out on someone, but it's not something I use all that much since it instigates the Forbearance cooldown. I'd avoid usage, especially early on, as you'll likely need to bubble later once they figure out you're spell vulnerable.
Racial Abilities: As I'm a Blood Elf and I've never played a paladin of another class, I'll be sorely lacking in this information. Arcane Torrent is, by far, the most useful racial you could have as a paladin in PvP. It gives you another interrupt, and against all-caster arena teams, you will be the bane of their existence (Well, every 2 minutes anyway). The Drenai's Gift of the Naaru ability is really nice to toss up, though I'd always expend healing on your teammates before yourself (you should have the hit points to deal with it anyway, and it's likely anyone else on your team will be squishier than you). A Dwarf's Stoneform is amazing for cleansing yourself of those nasty bleed effects you normally can't get rid of otherwise, so save it for the Rogue/Warrior/Druid abilities that stack up. Lastly, there's the Human Perception ability; yet another way for you to catch stealthers, and let you place perhaps a full-rank consecration on top of the unsuspecting ones.
Class Compliments:
In all reality, since you're likely not taking this seriously anyway, play with whomever you want. The point is, after all, to have fun with it. One way or the other, you're going to end up with silly stories and a lot of interesting memories. But, for those of you wanting to maybe accomplish a little more, I'll tell you what's worked for me.
2v2
My 2v2 partner is a rogue, and this works out quite well. He's hemo-specc'd, and everyone assumes I'm Holy and charges after me. During the confusion and frustration where they discover I am not a healer, he'll have already toasted a clothie or at least stun-locked their healer. If I can keep the melee busy, he'll sneak up and kill the ranged, and that works out rather lovely.
I would therefore then assume that a feral-specc'd druid in this role would function equally well. If you're playing the decoy game like I do, you want a stealther in your group.
I haven't tried out much else (there's no one else in our 2v2, and I can't blame them; our rating was terrible last season XD); if you have an obvious healer, they'll go kill them first. The theory could work with a warrior. They'll probably still assume you're Holy and go after you. If you have any ranged, though, it's probably likely they'll try to kill the ranged guy first; even if you WERE a healer, the ranged person is a helluva a lot squishier and likely to get burst-down. At this point, blow what mana you have on keeping them alive (or Blessing of Protection them). You want them coming after you; end of story.
3v3
Again, I keep stealthers about me. We're a Feral druid/Hemo rogue/Prot pally combination, and boy does it work out nicely. With both of them in stealth, everyone comes after me and they have the opportunity to sneak up and just utterly tear apart one of their team. Once we get them down to 2 opponents, the win is pretty inevitable.
If you're not going this option, then I'd take people who can disable others; a mage and a warlock with a prot pally would be interesting, with Polymorph on one guy and a Fel Hunter on a caster. But again; you're likely to be a detriment. You don't do a lot of damage, and if your casters are the ones doing everything, the other team's going to catch on pretty quickly.
5v5
I have the least experience here. I've only done a few, and I respecc'd Holy for a couple of the matches. There honestly isn't a whole lot of room for a Prot pally in 5v5. The chaos is ultimate, though you may benefit your team by taking a lot of the crowd control from the other side, or being single targetted first (earning your team a little head start on killing someone), forcing them to burn through your massive amount of hit points.
5v5's are so varied that I can't honestly offer much support advice; after all, you *are* the support. I'd say start out as a healer in 5v5 (even in Prot gear; just spam Flash of Light), and with two healers on whoever is being single-targetted, or you being forced into crowd control over your true healer, you'll have done a lot right there.
Tactics
I've offered a lot of my tactics already, but here's a quick run-down again, as well as advice on what classes will screw you up and who to look out for.
-Be the Decoy. This is going to be your best bet; your job in Arena is to soak up the damage that could otherwise be directed onto your teammates. It's like tanking in that regard; except your enemy has a wild aggro bar that you can't hold. Play the healer for a while, get them on you, and let the passive damage do the rest of the work.
-Stack spell damage. If you want to be dealing damage, stack spell damage over everything else. Your passive damage abilities will be dealing the most when you're in the ideal situation, and there's nothing quite like throwing 800+ Avenger's Shields on a regular basis. (I keep hoping I'll crit for 2k someday. =O )
-Toast Warlock Pets. ESPECIALLY succubus pets. Most others will tell you to leave them be, but this is what'll kill you in Arenas as a paladin. Succubi in particular have a lot less health than other Warlock pets, and your Exorcism will make quick work of them. And if you happen to have a Fel Hunter against you, drag it away from the rest of your casters in the group and take it out yourself. It's better to have you spell-locked than your healer or your major burst damage mage spell-locked.
-Leave Hunter pets alone. If there's a pet to leave alone, it would be the hunter's. The damage they do in the long run is negligible and a the hunter himself is a lot more dangerous (especially if he has Silencing Shot).
-Buff your party members. A no brainer, but hey, I guess it couldn't hurt to mention. Don't bother with greater blessings; Arena matches shouldn't last longer than 10 minutes, and if they do, rebuffing in combat isn't hard if you have the Pally Power add-on (WHICH EVERY PALADIN SHOULD, RAWR, ).
-Have fun. Don't get frustrated if you don't win; you shouldn't be expecting to win! Prot is entirely inferior in arenas, and my advice is only going to help you aggravate the other side and maybe win every once in a while a little more often. Prot paladins are a PvE spec, and you should never expect them to excel in anything other than what they are good at; tanking.
I'd like to leave everyone with a hilarious little treat; sometime last week before Thanksgiving, I popped on to do my 2v2 with my good buddy Kaitou. I'm still wondering if I set a record or something, because one of our matches lasted an hour and six minutes.
Best 7 point win EVER
There's the screenshot. It was basically about an hour of me and a feral druid running around in circles, disabling the other so we could heal, then running around in circles some more. Finally, the druid thought he might be able to burst me down by exiting combat, stealthing, and pouncing me. So I worked my way over to Kaitou, bubbled, and rezzed him. We won shortly thereafter.
Remember, Prot paladins aren't GOOD in arena. But... they aren't always bad either. ;)
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Trials of a Tankadin: Why We're NOT "Priests in Plate"
(Crossposted from http://myworld.creativegamingevents.com/blogs_view.php?id=583 )
First off, I apologize for this post being late. As such, there will be a second post going up later tonight; I try to keep to a Tuesday/Saturday posting schedule, and as a senior in college with finals this past week, this blog just fell to the bottom of the priority list. It's back up though, so don't expect me to miss much more in the coming weeks.
This post was meant to be up on Tuesday, which would have been wonderfully ironic given the release of patch 2.3. Patch 2.3 signifies the solidity of the paladin tank, and allows us one less argument as to why warriors and druids will always be "better" than us. That barrier, specifically the health barrier, no longer exists, and I am happy to observe such an important day in the history of WoW for the Tankadin.
However, not everyone looks at the new numbers. There are likely still many ignorant guild leaders, class officers, or other general players who will continue to insist that paladins are "priests in plate." So I still feel the need to finish this article. At the least, you can take this as a reflective post on the things I had to overcome to get to where I am today; it's all very relevant, as I know I'm not the only one who struggled to this spot, and I know I won't be the last either.
Now that that's all out of the way...
Being a paladin tank is only easy before 70. Before 70, anyone in plate (or bear form) is suitable for the job, regardless of what their spec or gear looks like. Lower level instances just aren't designed for the necessity of a dedicated tank. On the flip-side of the coin, it's just as easy for tankadins (or retadins) to be recruited as healers. And at low levels, there's no reason to say no. Your fellow holy paladins are probably being asked to tank from time to time, and there's no reason for them to say no either (well, unless they're walking around in cloth). It's just not a big deal until end game.
Which brings up the point. So you've hit 70! How do you prove yourself? There's two things you need to do:
-Gear yourself up. This includes solo-questing, rep-grinding, and/or profession grinding as well as running instances for lucky drops. Don't rely on your guild or on others to gear you up. You want to tank? Make it your responsibility to be where you need to be to do so.
-Run Shattered Halls. No, really. Shattered Halls is, hands down, the best place for a paladin tank to prove their worth. Admittedly, the first time you pull an entire group of elites and your group freaks out, it's pretty funny. But you really should let them know your game plan. Especially for the pulls that require you to run out of line of sight in order to get the casters and archers to come your way. Run an efficient AOE group through Shattered Halls (which can be done anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour, though I average about 45 minutes), and you'll be frequently asked for return performances; I guarantee it.
Why is all this proof necessary though? There's a lot of reasons. There's the initial stigma, which seems to be worse on the Horde side than Alliance (at least on my server), there's the hybrid assumption, and there's the gear issue.
The initial stigma, of course, is that paladins, being related to Holy, are obviously only meant to follow that path. WRONG. Paladins are crusaders of justice, warriors of light, meant to serve and protect. If nothing else, the tree that describes that the LEAST is Holy. Prince Arthas himself was a Retribution paladin, fighting with a two-hander for the light until he lost his way. When the most iconic character of a class has their tree represented the least, there's a problem, wouldn't you agree? Holy was the first tree to be "fixed," and to date is the strongest tree the paladin has to offer. This is true; paladins are the strongest single-target healer in the game.
But they're the only tank that can handle 6-10 mobs and not allow themselves or others to die. And I'd put something interesting in here about Retribution paladins, but I honestly know nothing about them and don't want to say something ignorant or uninformed. But they're cool! XD
The hybrid argument, that being that all hybrids are meant to be healers, is the worst argument anyone can throw at you. If hybrids are meant to be healers, go tell that to the feral druids who are taking my job. Don't get me wrong. I have nothing against people who like playing feral druids (until they whip me in arena, then they can DIAF), if that's how they like playing, more power to them. But I have issues with Blizzard buffing a leather-wearer to be a tank first over the other plate wearers. How does that make any sense?
The gear issue is the worst, though. There is, arguably, very little gear for tankadins, ESPECIALLY in the way of weaponry. Beyond our tier, you're not going to find stuff with much spell damage and defensive stats (though Zul'Aman brought some real nice goodies). Our weapons are total crap; we have to fight with the warlocks for the stam/spell damage swords, because they don't want to give us something like Crystalforged Sword, except, you know, epic.
Just the same, what it all comes down to is the amount of dedication you give the class and spec. Persevere! If you stick with it and you show people what you can do, no one can stop you. It will be hard. But in all honesty, I believe it's worth it in the end, especially if you get to play the way you want to play. I know it's possible.
After all, I did it.
First off, I apologize for this post being late. As such, there will be a second post going up later tonight; I try to keep to a Tuesday/Saturday posting schedule, and as a senior in college with finals this past week, this blog just fell to the bottom of the priority list. It's back up though, so don't expect me to miss much more in the coming weeks.
This post was meant to be up on Tuesday, which would have been wonderfully ironic given the release of patch 2.3. Patch 2.3 signifies the solidity of the paladin tank, and allows us one less argument as to why warriors and druids will always be "better" than us. That barrier, specifically the health barrier, no longer exists, and I am happy to observe such an important day in the history of WoW for the Tankadin.
However, not everyone looks at the new numbers. There are likely still many ignorant guild leaders, class officers, or other general players who will continue to insist that paladins are "priests in plate." So I still feel the need to finish this article. At the least, you can take this as a reflective post on the things I had to overcome to get to where I am today; it's all very relevant, as I know I'm not the only one who struggled to this spot, and I know I won't be the last either.
Now that that's all out of the way...
Being a paladin tank is only easy before 70. Before 70, anyone in plate (or bear form) is suitable for the job, regardless of what their spec or gear looks like. Lower level instances just aren't designed for the necessity of a dedicated tank. On the flip-side of the coin, it's just as easy for tankadins (or retadins) to be recruited as healers. And at low levels, there's no reason to say no. Your fellow holy paladins are probably being asked to tank from time to time, and there's no reason for them to say no either (well, unless they're walking around in cloth). It's just not a big deal until end game.
Which brings up the point. So you've hit 70! How do you prove yourself? There's two things you need to do:
-Gear yourself up. This includes solo-questing, rep-grinding, and/or profession grinding as well as running instances for lucky drops. Don't rely on your guild or on others to gear you up. You want to tank? Make it your responsibility to be where you need to be to do so.
-Run Shattered Halls. No, really. Shattered Halls is, hands down, the best place for a paladin tank to prove their worth. Admittedly, the first time you pull an entire group of elites and your group freaks out, it's pretty funny. But you really should let them know your game plan. Especially for the pulls that require you to run out of line of sight in order to get the casters and archers to come your way. Run an efficient AOE group through Shattered Halls (which can be done anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour, though I average about 45 minutes), and you'll be frequently asked for return performances; I guarantee it.
Why is all this proof necessary though? There's a lot of reasons. There's the initial stigma, which seems to be worse on the Horde side than Alliance (at least on my server), there's the hybrid assumption, and there's the gear issue.
The initial stigma, of course, is that paladins, being related to Holy, are obviously only meant to follow that path. WRONG. Paladins are crusaders of justice, warriors of light, meant to serve and protect. If nothing else, the tree that describes that the LEAST is Holy. Prince Arthas himself was a Retribution paladin, fighting with a two-hander for the light until he lost his way. When the most iconic character of a class has their tree represented the least, there's a problem, wouldn't you agree? Holy was the first tree to be "fixed," and to date is the strongest tree the paladin has to offer. This is true; paladins are the strongest single-target healer in the game.
But they're the only tank that can handle 6-10 mobs and not allow themselves or others to die. And I'd put something interesting in here about Retribution paladins, but I honestly know nothing about them and don't want to say something ignorant or uninformed. But they're cool! XD
The hybrid argument, that being that all hybrids are meant to be healers, is the worst argument anyone can throw at you. If hybrids are meant to be healers, go tell that to the feral druids who are taking my job. Don't get me wrong. I have nothing against people who like playing feral druids (until they whip me in arena, then they can DIAF), if that's how they like playing, more power to them. But I have issues with Blizzard buffing a leather-wearer to be a tank first over the other plate wearers. How does that make any sense?
The gear issue is the worst, though. There is, arguably, very little gear for tankadins, ESPECIALLY in the way of weaponry. Beyond our tier, you're not going to find stuff with much spell damage and defensive stats (though Zul'Aman brought some real nice goodies). Our weapons are total crap; we have to fight with the warlocks for the stam/spell damage swords, because they don't want to give us something like Crystalforged Sword, except, you know, epic.
Just the same, what it all comes down to is the amount of dedication you give the class and spec. Persevere! If you stick with it and you show people what you can do, no one can stop you. It will be hard. But in all honesty, I believe it's worth it in the end, especially if you get to play the way you want to play. I know it's possible.
After all, I did it.
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