Return of the Rogue

A dimly light winters night was like any other night in northrend. A soft blue glow blanketed the land with breaks of moon light giving focus to the newly fallen slow. Cold wind blew across a remote town shooting daggers at any exposed skin this harsh night. Only a local tavern I frequented provides a haven where lonely travelers enjoy warm seating by crackling flame and hot food in their belly. This haven is my den used to lure prey into dropping their defenses. As the night crept on tavern dwellers became dreary and yearned for a nice soft pillow to rest their heads. An alliance warrior named Kartuish, I only know his name because he spoke of his heroic battles, staggered from the warm tavern into the cold dark night alone. It was a mistake many have made before but this was Kartuish's last time. I soon followed out after him, but not close enough to be spotted. I slipped into a dark corner and applied poison to my blades. Creeping closer I see Kartuish is adjusting his armor. Perhaps the wind has found a kink in all that plate, "How ironic" I thought as I drew my blades. I took this opportunity to leap from the shadows and stun lock my target. Kartuish is caught off guard when he is weakest and I am strongest. The true way of the rogue. Kartuish did not stand a chance to my flurry of stuns and attacks. His only hope was mercy, but I was short on that. After I collected what I came for shadows draped their way around me as I shifted back into their cloak. I thought to myself "It has been too long since I have been here" as I cleaned my blades drifting back into the night.

This is the return of my rogue. Alliance you have been warned.

What the future holds for WoW 11/04/09

Traveling into the future is not possible yet, but we do know ho to slow the present down letting the rest of the known universe pass us by on the grand time scale. Simply travel as close to the speed of light in any direction for x hours and come back to the future y millions of years later.

Time = speed+distance

What does this have to do with WoW? I want to give you a peak of my predictions, of what I think, lies in store for the future of WoW.

1. Class change service.
With the additional paid services like name change, faction change, gender change, and race change Blizzard is putting in place. Blizzard is getting pretty creative is extracting addition money for it's large player base. With a fairly new moto like"Take the player not the class" you know they are not opposed to giving the player base what they want.

2. Looking For Raid system to operate much like new LFG system
Blizzard is famous for building off what works. Cross realm BGs were just the foundation of what is around the bin for raids. With the LFG system going in place for instances Blizzard is just paving the way for cross realm raids. CRI will get polished for a few months then expect to see looking for raid changes going out.

3. Leveling speed increased and level cap stopping at 85 or 90.
Leveling has never been faster than it is right now, but that does not mean it can't go even faster. Expect to see options to start characters at max level after completing a series of phased quests, think DK starting zone, but coming out max level rocking the blue gear. Class balance is all about talent points. The more talent points to deal with the greater the difficulty of balance. Honestly I could go without ever having to level. Just scale the dungeons and mobs for a tier of gear. If your char does not have x then mob hits for y and has z health.

When these changes go into effect you can link this blog and say "Told you so".

The great Paladin Nurf of 2009

Ahh Paladin class I barely knew you. It was bound to happen again and it has. Paladins are getting hit hard with the nurf bat and Blizzard took a few steps back before pummeling the class "into the ground" this time. Here is the great Paladin Nurf of 2009 breakdown...

Flash of Light: This spell no longer causes a heal-over-time effect unless the player has the Infusion of Light talent.

Aura Mastery: This effect of this talent has been reduced in duration to 6 seconds.

Finally the big nurf to Paladins outside of arenas...

Lay on Hands: This ability now places Forbearance on the target and cannot be used on a target with Forbearance.

PVP
You can hear the cheering on the forms about this one. LOH has been the 20 minute cool down oh shit spell for the class since the beginning of wow. It was used in duels to make other classes cry, nah beg, for mercy. The order of pvp was Fight until low health > bubble > full heal > back to fighting until low on health > LOH > back to fighting.

PVE
This is a huge nurf to PVE healing. Paladin tanks with Paladin healers are getting the shaft. Paladin healers are going to have to work around this nurf with BOL the MT and LOH the OT. I guess the MT should be BOL all the time.

Armor type rolling
For the longest time Paladins had to wear cloth to heal, leather and mail to dps, and armor to tank. Paladins needed to roll on other gear because they had none of their own. The Blizzard released set or healing/DPS/and tanking plate. But Blizzard never removed Paladins option to "use" other types of gear. That is until patch 3.3 drops on the live realms. So get your cloth, mail, leather rolls in because you won't have the option come patch 3.3. *sigh*

Good bye quickly gearing out Healing Paladins
Hello slowly beating your head against the wall while looking for gear.

Final thought
Priests are getting some pretty nice buffs in healing and shadow. Guess it's time to return to my roots as a raiding disc/shadow priest who's only goal is to make Warlocks cry.

Top of the meters here I come again...

Leveling a Paladin 72 - 80

Ding 80!...for the 5th time...
It has taken me 6 days 1 hour 33 mins and 15 seconds completing a little over 1000 quests to go from 1 - 80 on my Paladin. I used heirloom items from level 1, made sure I always logged out in an inn, and did not work on any professions.

What I have learned about my classes spec while leveling...
Nothing I could not have picked up from a practice dummy, a few minutes reading over elitist jerks forums, and designing a few handy macros. I basically pressed 3 buttons from 1 - 50 then added a fourth at level 50 - 80. Because I play on a pvp server I did have to use my bubble, /wave, harth button a few times when the occasional level 80 tried to gank me.

Do we really need 6 days of play time to learn a class?
No. In fact Blizzard should have an option to start at level 80 if you already have an 80. Once you raided with other classes you have a very good idea what is needed to play that class well. Questing does nothing but teach us how to be better questers NOT better players. I could have mastered those 4 buttons in 15 minutes or less.

Now what?
I am going to work on engineering and maybe armorsmithing. My two specs are going to be holy/ret for pve and pvp. So far pvp healing on a Paladin is fun fun fun. Can't stop the healing powerhouse from getting 10k healing crits. Muahhaa

Leveling a Paladin 40 - 72 the short and long of it.

40 - 72 you pick up a few more good talent points and the all mighty divine storm. Nothing more to report except what I have come to find out...

What I have learned about my class, while I leveled, help me later?
The short answer is: No. Nothing I could not have figured out in 10 minutes at a practice dummy, little bit of time on a spec blog, short time on developing macros with hit rotations.
The long answer is: There is two sides to every argument. In the case of leveling one side is for leveling as a way to best learn your class on your way to 80. In the case of starting at max level, where questing is not important, the game does not begin until you are 80. What you do at 80 in instances and raids is not what you did while questing. In fact you are going to do everything different at 80. Questing does not make you a better player.

How does killing 10 mobs, collecting 10 boxes, and delivering a letter prepare you for a raid?
The short answer is: It does not.
The long answer is: While questing is a nice source of gold, greens, and exploring the lay of the land. Questing helps in no way prepare you for instances or raids. In fact the only real skill questing teaches you to put the most damage out in the shortest amount of time. This can hurt you in a instance/raid by pulling aggro from the tank and wiping the raid. Blizzard needs to give players the option to start at either 80 or very very close to 80 if you already have an 80 on your account.

The instances/raids will be filled with bads who don't know how to play their class if given the option to start at 80 if you have an 80!
The short answer is: If you are a bad player with another 80 your going to be bad no matter what class you play.
The long answer is: No. How bad a person plays is directly tied to the player and not the class. For example you can get a skilled level 80 mage and give them access to a level 80 warlock. The skilled player will have mastered the warlock in a very short time. Another example is take a bad level 80 warrior and give them access to a level 80 death knight. The bad player is now playing the death knight badly. The learning curve is not directly tied to questing it tied to the player behind the keyboard.

All in all I have been pushing the same 4 buttons when questing. Not really a great way to learn my class now is it? The same holds true for every class I have played to 80. Blizzard recognizes the grind to 80 is boring with the addition of heirloom items with XP bonuses. Not to mention the level cap has only been raised to 85 in the next expansion. Perhaps the option to start at max level may be closer than we think.

Patch 3.2.2 download mirrors

Patch 3.2.2 was released today from Blizzard officially. Having a hard time getting the patch? Then why not get a patch that is hosted at a 3rd party? Let's highlight some of the security reasons this may be a bad idea....

1. 3rd party hosting sites don't have a vested interest in keeping data secure.
Sure they may have the storage and bandwidth to handle the load. But how closely can a 3rd party monitor a single file among 100s of thousands?

2. The file transfer to the 3rd party from Blizzard may not have been encrypted.
If data channels where not encrypted at the time of transfer. Then the data could have been compromised. When else could a key logger programmer have such a time to alter a patch?

3. Malware/spyware has poisoned your DNS.
When you click a link you can see where your downloading data from in the information bar. When your DNS is poisoned (location is really going to bad site) you may think your getting good data, but in fact you may be downloading some nasty malware/spyware.

Having worked in IT security for 10+ years I may just know a thing or three about security. So if you trust 3rd parties to patch the game you play 2 hours a night, have 5 charters on, and it would take days to recover. Then go for it. For myself I will be getting my patch directly from Blizzard.

Don't say I did not warn you.

Simple economics is not so simple

The economy has been in a down turn the last couple of years and I can't help but feel the squeeze from every direction. Back when the economy was good it wasn't like cars were cheap, morgages were low, and the price of every day things were rock bottom. Now that the economy is in the pits prices have gone up and not down to reflect our status. It's like businesses are ringing the customer towel trying to get every drop of capital they can. Tollways have added 20 to 35 percent markup on tolls, my grocery bill has risen 8%, and I have not gotten a raise in 2 years. What businesses are missing is to maximize profit in a poor economy you need to move VOLUME and not raise the price.

For example lets say you're in the market to buy a t-shit and your budget is $20. Now you go down to the t-shirt store and the store had some t-shirts you really liked for $20 but they wanted to make some more money so they decided to raise the price to $25 for t-shirts. Well that $25 dollar t-shirt is now out of your price range so you go to another store. The store has lost 100% of their profit for the shirt. If the t-shirt store were to LOWER the price to say $15 they would move twice as many t-shirts and lose very little per shirt but gain a lot with volume.

The lesson here is lower your price, increase your volume, make more money. Another side lesson is the economy is not an excuse to raise prices as much as greed is. Check the prices on things when the economy does go back up and notice the lack of price reduction.

Leveling a Paladin 1- 40

Leveling a Paladin has never been easier than it is right now. Class mechanics of a the Paladin allow for reduced damage, total damage absorption, and total damage recovery. These are key when dealing with ANY pve and pvp situation. When questing you are going to get hit so the more armor and health you have the better off you are. I can go toe to toe with 4 mobs 3 levels higher than me and be perfectly OK. On my priest I would have been running for my life. So now you can take a hit. Can you put out the damage? Yes.

Talents
Retribution tree is all about putting out the damage. The Paladin class is all bout crits. Crit healing, crit absorption, and putting out crit damage. The ret tree has been reworked over so just about any combo of talent points you put in are going to be useful.

Glyphs
Glyph of seal of command is an awesome leveling glyph giving back 8% of mana when judging with it. Glpyh of judgment is nice too but look for it under 30 gold. These help so much.

Armor
Quest greens are OK when leveling but the fastest way to upgrade is the AH. When scanning the AH for upgrades search for "of the bear". Those items have a good amount of strength and stamina. Two key stats when leveling.

Hit rotation
Open up with Hand of Reckoning > Judgement of Light > Exorcism > finish with White Damage. The mob will be dead and you will be almost at full mana.

Games

Being an avid gamer has enriched my life and allowed me to stay connected with family and friends. People I would have lost contact with if it were not for games. I not only socialize with my real life friends but also with my on-line friends. Watching movies/TV is nice but I would rather participate than view. The skills I have learned from gaming are...

1. Competitiveness
2. Strategy
3. Discipline
4. People networking
5. Computer networking
6. Computer enhancement

Gaming has kept me away from drugs, drinking too much, and hanging out with the wrong people. Also gaming has helped me earn a living, set goals, and modivate myself in every way. Because of games I have a wife, car, and house. I have traveled to different countries and around this great country we live in. I do recognize hard work leads to a positive goal. All this because of gaming.

Games make you a more efficient at what you do. Because they challenge your mind like your body gets challenged in the gym.

Thank you games.

Pally Power

I have been leveling a Paladin with my brother the last 10 days. Before I go into detail I have leveled 4 toons to 80 with the priest being the hardest hands down. I tried leveling a Paladin before 3.0 to 70, at the time max level, but was board to tears. I even called ret speced Paladins "lolret" and wondered why they did not respec to tank or healer. Then came patch 3.0 and ret Paladins went from the worst DPS spec in the game straight to top. It was the ret Paladins revenge. After 3.0 came out I would run when I saw a ret Paladin. My my how things have changed for the ret Paladin. Paladins are a force to be reckoned with and feared, still, in BGs and world pvp.

Now let's review bonuses the Paladin class gets over other classes...
1. Can wear all armor in the game.
2. Can full heal every 20 minutes.
3. Can bubble and hearth/full heal every 5 minutes
4. Can reduce ALL damage by 50% for 12 seconds every 3 minutes
5. Can heal/restore mana with damage received and restore health on damage applied
6. Can heal without changing forms
7. Can move faster than anyone once mounted

Being able to wear ANY armor you find is massive advantage over other classes. With a large amount of gear available you will have no trouble gearing up in end game raids. Some DPS mail/leather drops and no one wants it? Take it for ret DPS set until you find DPS plate. Some healing mail/leather/cloth drops? Roll on it for your healing set. ANY plate drops and you have a chance at that too. Being armor versatile means you have options to upgrade faster.

These bonuses are HUGE on leveling and even bigger on PVP servers. When leveling anytime you can reduce downtime and decrease damage taken the time to level is going to be minimized greatly. On a pvp server there are always going to be gankers, greafers, and 80s waiting to take you out. Even an 80 won't be able to kill you once you bubble. A full heal, reduced all damage by 50%, is HUGE in pvp. How frustrating it has been over 5 years of going toe to toe with a Paladin only to see them heal to full, bubble heal to full, and then escape with a bubble hearth. Now it's my turn...

I have been rocking out a tanking Druid but after seeing the HUGE advantages Paladins have. I will be switching my main over to my Paladin once I hit 80. With little down time, reduced damage, great buffs, full heals, and bubble hearth. The Paladin is a very powerful class in all pve and pvp situations. I am seeing why the class is so popular and what other spells and skills they posses.

If you can't beat them...roll one.