#PaladinWeek WAY too many Paladins

My husband has like 6-7 paladins… maybe more on his account.  Only three of them are max level thus far.  He likes paladins.  He’s played a paladin since he logged on in vanilla and he’s weathered all the changes the game provided for paladins.  Mostly he’s been a Prot pally, sometimes a Ret and very occasionally he’s even been a holy paladin.  He likes paladins so much that our son has a level 85 paladin and I have several paladins myself, though my main is my death knight [I always thought the Paladin/Death Knight combo was interesting].

Askevar and Venoym

Anyway here’s Venoym in full transmog:

Like I said, he’s had this toon forever.  He exceeds me in total achievement points and has ground things like the Insane.  He did contemplate swapping mains once or twice because of some massive paladin changes that came out but has always managed to roll with those punches and enjoy the class once again.

Here’s his smattering of other paladins…  I left out his army of lowbies.

Ven’s pally army: Herald toon; Horde and 2 of his main server alt pallies.

Yes, he’s mad about paladins.

So much so that our son’s first toon was a paladin.  And yes, it looks very much like Venoym… he is a daddy’s boy.

Little Venoym

He calls it a hunter though… Our son thinks Hunter is part of the toon’s name… so yeah.  It’s weird I know 😛  So he’s got the mage on one account and this paladin on the other.  If he wants anymore he’ll have to level them.  [His third toon appears to be a warlock that just hit level 3 – and he’s very very proud of that].

And for completion’s sake here’s my Paladin Collage:

The dwarf there was the first toon I ever rolled on the account… I leveled her to 40ish in vanilla and then dropped her because while being a Jack of all trades was fun at low levels, it became more complex and weak the higher you went.  She’s swapped specs a few times but it currently holy.

The human paladin is my current bank toon… I decked her out in that transmog from Darkmoon Faire at level 10 or 20… I honestly forget which, but I wanted her to look good.

And the horde there is Holykau…  the poor thing can’t keep a horde guild on Argent Dawn – she’s had them transferred out from under her four or five times now… and it’s continually someone kicking everyone and ninja-transferring to either have a level 25 guild or to sell it… I’m still not completely sure.  She was leveled for the double agent achievement but I enjoy playing horde side on occasion.

Mists of Pandaria

Askevar is 90… hit it Friday in fact [with Venoym].  This was the fastest and hardest we’ve ever pushed to level.  I know a lot of people like to savor initially, but we both prefer to just get our main to 90 and worry about savoring later with alts.  That’s why they exist after all?  Anyway, Askevar’s main set is going along well.  I do a couple scenarios a day as well as a heroic or two in the evening.  All my pieces, save a 442 blue ring, are 450 or better, with several 463 items.  I’m doing my daily rep grinds and I’ve maxed all my professions both primary [Inscription/Jewelcrafting] and Secondary [Archaeology, First Aid, Cooking, Fishing] and I got access to the end food for the Way of the Oven [aka the tank tree].  I also have all my on server alts parked at Halfhill to farm various veggies to max the other ways or to create the max Oven food.  By the way, if you do this, the Outpost Zhu flightpoint in Krasanger is the one that connects the Jade Forest initial town to Halfhill.

For that matter, I’ve now maxed out every profession on my account except Blacksmithing and Skinning.  Suffice to say, our guild has the heirloom legs already, and not just through my efforts either.  Sadly they are only good through 85, which I think is a little silly, but I was able to buy a pair for my level 20 monk.  Oh, we also have the guild shirts because a group running scenarios last night saw we were only two away and decided to finish.  They’re kinda cute but you can’t see it with my armor on [as it should be for a tank].

My offset gear is crap [its unholy now, gave up frost] and a quarter to half the pieces are still level 85 stuff that I need to replace, but, on the flipside, I’m quite a hardy tank right now.

Honestly, I don’t see any of my alts getting to 90 very quickly.  I’ve got 2 at 86 – my bank alt/gatherer and my horde pally [the horde pally would net me 2 account achievements].  With our guild not even discussing raiding for another two weeks, I might get one leveled but who knows?  My main priority, as always, is going to be getting Askevar’s tank set raid ready – everything else is bonus.

Sundays have become achievement night and due to lack of interest from our guild [a lot of people are still busy leveling and that’s alright], we’ve been pulling from cross realm friends.  We’ve gotten a lot done though and we’ve had a blast doing it.  We even managed to 9 man Heroic Chimaeron just before MoP hit – with 3 healers, 2 tanks and the rest dps – and that’s what we managed to get… we had intended to 2 heal, but with everyone wanting to try out their mainspec, extra heals never hurt :D.

 

I will admit, at times the dailies feel almost endless, but once I get the reputations to max, I’ll be gold.  I’m already revered with Order of the Cloud Serpent and well into honored with most of the rest so it’ll get there 🙂  And I’m not finding these dailies near as painful as some have been in the past either.

 

Goldwise – I’ve already spent a ton between buying the Grand Expedition Yak and speed leveling some professions.  Despite that, I’ve actually managed to make money on Askevar and I’ll make back the rest and then some when I level the alts, so it’ll all work out.  Hey, don’t look at me that way… I saved and ground for that Yak for several months before MoP dropped and I’m darn proud of it!  There is nothing like achieving a goal you set out to complete.

 

Speaking of achievements, for the first time since I was maining a warlock, I have finally passed my husband in total achievement points.  Now, so it’s said, that won’t last as he’ll do all those achievements and catch right back up… but for once it’s nice to be ahead!

Interesting Times…

I logged on yesterday to my one level 85 horde toon – a holy pally… a holy cow to be exact, named Holykau!  I didn’t have any notion to level anything or really to do much as hubby and I will be moving servers shortly [but that story for another entry] so I figured I’d just chance a heroic on my tauren pally.  Her gearing is decent, but most of the healing gear she keeps picking up lacks spirit…  [I know, right?].  Anywho, I got into a really stupid Grim Batol run and after I was kicked, I got asked if I wanted to come to an ICC retro run.

My son was down for his nap, and I rather enjoy doing ICC achievements, so I said yes and got an invite.  The horde guild I’m in was teaming up with another horde guild to get things done.  We managed most of the fights on heroic mode, save Putricide and Lich King, but we got the achievements off those two [Nausea, Heartburn, Indigestion and Been Waiting a Long time for This] and many achievements off the others.

The Lich King fight was a bit of a heartstopper.  Not everyone had logged into vent and no one was explaining the fights in text…  The first defile covered the entire platform… We had to move onto the throne ramp to survive and dodge a defile there!

Epic recovery though and to my chagrin, my inner raid leader stepped up and was calling things, since no one else would *sighs*.  But we did it – we one shot it, with some massive mess ups…

But the most exciting part of the night was that right as we were waiting for the post 10% RP to happen on LK,  hubby told me that the Tues/Wed raid group was asking for us to come give them a hand with Nefarian as they had two people out.  [The RP on the LK fight never took that long before, I swear!].

I still cannot stop laughing every time someone in my horde pally’s guild calls me “bro”, “dude” or “man”.

Anywho, I finished up, hopped over and despite hubby and I not having really done much with the fight, we managed to one shot Nefarian, then moved on to Bastion and downed Halfus and V/T.  Only had time for one shot at the council – which most of that group has not yet seen, so eh.

A full night of raiding… that I haven’t had in quite some time lol.

I Swore I’d Never…

I’ve got Askevar geared and I’ve been doing a few instances [including heroics] on my hunter and Askevar 2 as I feel like it.  That’s gone fairly well all in all and they’re both doing well – doing about 10k each.  My priest [Kintara] is as geared as she can get without running heroics and still provides me with healing issues in regulars… therefore, I’ve been extremely reluctant to go that route [though I’ll probably be doing some PVPing with her].

Several guildies have been pushing me to take my pally holy and try healing.  I finally caved and did so…  And I right enjoy it!  It’s going to take some getting used to the new abilities… but it seems alright.  So we shall see how Cata healing treats her when I take the notion to queue up for a pug.  I may finally get a shot to trying all the existing specs for all the existing classes now.

Every group needs a little Ayeffkay.

I was on my second priest – in the Northrend zones and decided to queue for my daily random to get the few JP I get.  I ended up with a dwarf pally tank named Ayeffkay.  I ended up healing for him for 6-7 instances after that.  He was trying to hit level 77 and I was quite content to do a few Northrend regulars, especially with a tank who seemed to know the pulls, had good situational awareness and was quite hardy.

It was one of the most enjoyable set of pug instances I have ever done.  I actually created a toon to tell his guild so as well.  I mean, I do that with really nasty people so shouldn’t I do it with those that really shine too?

So thank you Ayeffkay!  You made my day!

Alt Update

Askevar is now 2h frost tank to collect souls for shadow’s edge.  Her threat actually seems a bit higher than in the dual wield build… not appreciably, but just a smidge.  I got just over 200 souls last week between a run of the first 4 bosses in ICC [6 of our 10 regulars were out so we snagged other random people and alts to fill] and ICC25 up through fester and rotface with a few shots at Dreamwalker – YAY ADDS!

Askalaphos – My hunter is now decked out in 4 piece t10, thanks to VoA 🙂  She’s a great example of toon in excellent gear doing mediocre dps.  On a stand and burn I can hit 5k…  with anything else I hover in the 3-4k range.  That’s fine for heroics… but yeah… the idea of raiding with her in this shape is not pleasing.  I may need to consider a respec.

Alika – My pallytank is coming along well.  I’m hoping to get her into an ICC run eventually… as either tank or dps.  I’ve snagged a couple failed pugs so far that either couldn’t clear the trash or wouldn’t listen to mechanics and wiped on Marrowgar.  But I’d love to replace her 219 tanking ring… and frankly her 219 shield as well.  Her day will come 🙂  I’ll get a pug that can hit lower spire eventually.  I’m saving up the badges for her tanking pants next.  Her ret set is pretty good, but it’s all crafted/ICC 5 mans drops.  Yes, I’m very aware that the NES isn’t the ideal trinket for her ret offspec.  Unfortunately, most of the ones she needs are in ICC…  not going to happen anytime soon and I darn well don’t need 500 hit… so the hit trinket is out.  And “facerolling” 4-5k in an offspec ain’t bad either in randoms.

Carlyn – is slowly gearing up.  I have several more things she needs via triumphs before she’s “complete” there, but she’s coming along well.  I actually managed to pull 5k on a heroic boss fight [I stink at trash – big shock I know] so maybe I’ve not forgotten too much of warlocking from back in BC.

Aulao – My mage is doing alright.  I’ve cannibalized most of her frost for saronite for Shadow’s Edge [and my poor shaman’s as well] so they’re both behind on gear, but still doing okay.  She’s been arcane for a while but I’ve been experimenting with fire – with mixed results.

Tsali – Enhancement/resto – but spends more time in healing gear than in dps gear ironically.  I heal so that I can buy her better enhancement gear…  Still having issues with resto shaman healing in some of the simplest places.  If the group is good, it all goes smoothly.  If I have jerks and people pulling for the tank… well.. we’re probably going to wipe.  I don’t have the instincts yet or the skill to do any amazing saves.

Arica – My kitty is about 20 badges from 4 piece t10 and she’s doing awesomely…  probably the best of all my dps toons.  I’m  pulling 6-7k dps on boss fights and typically end up with an overall of 4-6k.  I’m impressed and the “rotation” really clicks well with my playing style.  She’s my primary dps alt

Kintara – My primary alt and I love her so!  If I could walk away from tanking and Askevar I would be playing her as my main.  However, I still adore tanking and Askevar too much to give up.  Disc priesting is wacky bubbly fun :D.  Save for a drop in VoA25, I may never see, she’s as geared as she can be short of ICC10/25 gear.

Kalliana – Um… she’s there.  She does the weekly and is done with gearing from triumphs… just need a better ring [curse you HPOS!!]

Odyyn – He just got his first piece of t10.  I seem to fall in and out of love with warrior tanking… some weeks I like it and run his dailies… some weeks I don’t.  Of course, jerks in ICC 25 gear can test many a tank’s patience.

Now, how do I keep it straight?  I honestly don’t know…  I just do.  They are separate toons, with separate personalities… they’re individuals, so it seems easy enough.  I also have a list on rememberthemilk dot com of things I need/want/would like to do.  I mark them off when I get them done.

“But you’re making WoW into a chore!”

No, I’m not…  I have no deadlines set on the list… no requirement to get everything or anything done.  But hey, if I get in a mood to explore or grind rep, I can easily look and see who needs what, pick what I want and go.  It’s about efficiency.  Altoholic helps with that too.  But I try to make anything I do go quickly and easily.  Since I’m cutting back on my WoW time, that’s even more important.  And if I don’t touch the list for a week?  Who cares?!

Main Spec Versus Offspec in Heroics

I’ve always been a big believer in rolling on the gear of the role that you’re playing in heroics.  I realize that gear in five mans is basically inconsequential at the moment – save for a few pieces in the ICC five mans.  But something happened today that made me think a bit.

I’ve been trying to get the tyrannical beheader for my paladin’s ret offspec.  She’s main spec prot but I queued her as dps for H-PoS.  20 Minute wait.  Queue finally pops and we’re in.  The group looks great!  The warrior tank is super geared, as are the other two dps.  The healer is a bit undergeared but within acceptable margins… and with an overgeared tank – that won’t be a problem.  Tank takes off and hollers that he’s going to chain pull this place and to stick close to him and follow his directions.  We start down the hill.  The hunter accidently pulls a group the tank tried to skip and the tank ends up pulling 2 more groups.  A warrior tank, plus mobs that won’t gather up… yeah bad formula.  Despite our best efforts to help and CC, we end up wiping and naturally, the tank drops.

We run back in and requeue.  I queue as dps, but throw on my tanking gear/spec.  I know that in the early afternoon it could be a ten minute wait for a tank even so.  We wait a few minutes, get buffs and take off.  My pally’s main set is VERY well geared for an alt and I know how to handle her.  My hubby’s been a pally since vanilla and he’s taught me quite a bit.  Suddenly the queue pops back up.  I requeue as dps, and the group leader fusses and said that she did that so I could queue as tank.  I replied that I was here for the tyrannical beheader only and that I’d queued as dps for that reason – because I didn’t want to deal with the QQ when I rolled on it as the tank.  First boss goes down and we’re almost to the second boss before I talk a guildie into coming and tanking for us.

But that begs the question of what I should have done?  When I go for the NES on any tanking toon for their offset I’ve always queued as dps.  I know a lot of people say role doesn’t matter… but there’s nothing more annoying than losing something you’re after to the tank or healer [or to a dps if you’re a tank/healer].  After I replied, what I did, the group didn’t question it at all…  I know they were a bit peeved that we were sitting there waiting for a tank for quite a while and having to effectively 4 man things.  Had I not gone tank, given how long we were sitting it would have just fallen apart.  But again, I don’t want to be dishonest.  I spent the 20 minutes in queue as dps waiting for H-PoS specifically.  I paid the dues for a dps spot…  I was what I consider honest and ethical about trying to get a piece of offset loot.

Should I just queue my pally as tank for h-PoS from now on and roll on what I please?

What would you do?

Have I Psyched Myself Out?

I often joke that I minored in worrying… because well, I’m good at it.  I’m starting to realize that I’ve let other people erode my self-confidence as a death knight tank. 

On my pally, threat has rarely been an issue – randoms or otherwise.  I can half sleep through the instance and keep threat on stuff.  Not that being good at pallytanking is easy, because it takes work and practice.  It is EASIER.  On my warrior I knew the “problems” they face going in.  I accepted them, and made a conscious decision to be fearless and plunge into heroics.  It worked and my warrior tanking experience has been mostly successful.  Now I’m working on getting my druid out there tanking… and I’m facing a lot of the same insecurities.  I took her on a guild heroics run this evening and did alright…  Had threat pulled a few times, and caught up with a bear tank friend who gave me a few tips…  I may try it again.  I won’t go into heroics until I consider myself good enough or until I make a conscious decision to be as fearless as I was on the warrior.

But back to the death knight…  It’s been a struggle with her for a long time.  Not because she sucks, or I don’t play her well.. or anything other than self-image.  Now, don’t be thinking I’m considering giving up dk tanking here.  I love it and I believe it complements my hubby’s pallytanking well… but I also have my own frustrations.  I’ve let a lot of stuff get to me that shouldn’t.  Former officer in the guild berating me on officerchat for low threat [dk versus pally], as well as in vent.  Same officer taunting mobs off me in the 25 man raids in order to be the center of attention…  pug healers that see me and “omg dk tank – drop group”.  The many disastrous pugs I’ve encountered on my dk and the poison that is trade chat – espousing that dks should never tank and weren’t made to tank…    It also can be a frustration when I can’t get a rune strike to proc in ICC and hubby’s aoe threat keeps yanking stuff, so I can’t get a rune strike… etc.  Bad RNG can suck.  BADLY.

My dk who was made and specced and geared with raid [mostly] single target tanking in mind… has trouble in heroics with ICC geared dps going all out [specifically bladestorming warriors, nonmisdirecting hunters and on occasion mages].  I see other dk tanks having the same issues… and warrior tanks, who are even more aoe threat starved than I am…  And I realize that I’m not alone.  I’m not the only one struggling and fighting to be the best and do their best.  Maybe this is why I try to be more careful with warrior and dk tanks on my dps toons.  I rarely have to tread very cautiously with pallytanks and bear tanks are rather rare in my random experience… so usually the ones that exist are very geared, very good, and have very few issues.

As several guildies have told me – my tanking talent is there and I’m good at it.  I just need to stop worrying, be fearless and just tank.

So… Let’s all be fearless together.  If you have a toon with a tank or healing spec that is ready for heroics but you’ve been too timid to try it, today is the day!  Throw yourself out there and just do it!  I declare today “Fearless” day!  Feel free to reply and tell us how it goes, good or bad!  Do it!!!  Do it NAO!!!

ETA: “Fearless” day can apply to all toons eligible for dungeon finder!

The Alt Update:

First of all, my pally tank alt got in a guild Ony10 run last night.  I was kind of surprised they wanted us and I honestly didn’t feel like raiding but it was a LOT of fun!  The paladin def helm dropped and they gave it to me!  Totally not expecting that at all.  I was… well squeeing would be the best word to use lol.

Still need Classic Dungeonmaster on my shaman and priest [and upcoming mage and warrior as well].

Explored the Eastern Kingdoms on my paladin and outland on my rogue; and got the World Explorer title and achieve on my hunter.  Still got a lot to do with this for all my toons, but a little at a time is what I’m aiming for.  I should have plenty of time before Cataclysm.

Let’s see…  I’m working on collecting cooking recipes I missed/skipped on my alts right now.  I’m only a few recipes short on my priest, shaman and  mage [excluding the cooking daily only recipes of course – those add a few more].

I hit level 70 on my mage [yes already].  The battleground experience she gets is pretty insane.  I honestly haven’t worked on my warrior much of late, but eh, I’ll get him leveled eventually.

Perils of tanking on an alt…

I have 3 toons with tank spec – my dk who is my main, my paladin who is probably more often prot than ret and my druid who I abhor tanking on.  I haven’t blogged about this incident before, because it predated creation of my blog by a few weeks but the newest post over at Confessions of a Girl Gamer reminded me of it.

3 people in my guild were looking for a heroic toc run for a few items and they needed a tank and healer.  My Death Knight needed nothing, so I said that I could bring my paladin tank and attempt to tank it.  I’d been told that she was ready for Ulduar-10 easily, so I wasn’t too worried.  They pugged a healer [their first mistake].

We finished the jousting without a hitch, then the druid healer we’d picked up proceeded to instruct me on every minute action I should take as tank.  I was amused at first, then just tuned her out.  I have little patience for micro managers when it comes to my tanking… especially non-tanks.  She was also going on and on about how awesome a toc25 healer she was.  I glance at her gear… level 200 epics and blues.  Yeah.  Right.  Just heal the bloody instance.

And we proceed to start in on a wipefest.  After three of them, the druid starts in on how awesome a healer she is and how it can’t possibly be her fault… I don’t have enough health and I take too much damage.

“Fine.  I’ll go get Askevar.  BRB” and I handed lead to one of the guildies.

I walk back in as an Ulduar 25 geared DK tank with the undying title.  She didn’t say another word.  At all.  And my elemental shammy guildie was having to throw heals to keep me topped off because the druid either couldn’t or wouldn’t heal… though she was running out of mana really really fast…