Protection Warrior PvP

So I’ve recently respecced Renwald to this spec for PvP, and have been having a blast. Have had great success in Battlegrounds, in both small- and large-scale battles. Arenas have been a bit tougher — survivability is great, but very lacking in stopping power when it comes to saving my 2v2 teammate, whose gear is pretty low-end. Mind you, the new arena rating system that has come with Season 6 has made this fact completely irrelevant! 🙂

Warbringer was changed in 3.1 to allow the use of Charge, Intervene and Intercept in any stance, in addition to removing roots/snares. The amount of and anti-kitability that this build brings to the table is just ridiculous. Classes that have traditionally been a huge challenge to even TOUCH (let alone kill), like Frost Mages, no longer pose such a massive threat.

I’m still considering dropping the Fury points in Renwald’s spec for Tactical Mastery in Arms. Frost Mages and Retribution Paladins are still problematic with Ice Block and Divine Shield. Since I spend those fights mostly in Defensive Stance, I nearly never have enough rage to use Shattering Throw when I need it the most. Switching to Battle Stance drops me to 10 rage, and Shattering Throw costs 25. Tactical Mastery would shore up this last hole in Renwald’s offensive arsenal.

Of course, then he’d lose Piercing Howl and Blood Craze… His mobility is such that Piercing Howl might not be a huge loss. Blood Craze, with a Prot Warrior’s health pool, would probably be the biggest loss.

Will have to play around with that talent calculator… Impale is also an awfully nice talent, but at what cost…

Melee DPS is Hard

I’ll admit it. For the vast majority of my WoW career, I have played non-DPS specs. Renwald has been Protection since he had a talent point to spend. Watts was Retribution for a while, but has been mostly Holy or Protection. Akhari was Protection for her entire Paladin career. Leaves was Resto, Akhali Resto/Feral… etc etc. The point is that I haven’t had as much experience in my day-to-day WoWing doing DPS as many other people have.

Lemme tell ya, I haven’t given these guys nearly as much credit as they deserve! Doing DPS when you’re not used to it is HARD!

I haven’t had much experience with caster DPS, mind you. With Dual Specs, Renwald now has an Arms spec (which I’m loving!). We finished off Naxx 25 for the week last night, and I went DPS on Sapphiron. What an annoying fight! I spent most of my time trying to avoid Blizzards, such that my DPS overall was under 2k. This same spec/gear was doing ~2400 on other fights. Argh!

What a different game, though! I’m not used to fighting against myself, in terms of rotations/cooldowns/debuffs/etc. It’s a lot of fun! Quite a different mindset from tanking.

Now if I can just get rid of the tank pieces that still populate Renwald’s DPS gear…

Ulduar: First Impressions

I could also entitle this post “How I learned to stop worrying and love the wipe”.

Ulduar is HARD.

My guild has, as of this post, downed three of the fourteen bosses in Ulduar. Those three being Flame Leviathan, Razorscale, and XT-002 Deconstructor. I have only personally been present for the XT-002 Deconstructor kill. Was present for quite an evening of repairs against Razorscale and the Assembly of Iron though.

Rampant Corruption

It has become probably one of my most feared noises, the little ‘bonk!’ of WoW crashing when logging in. Error #134. Error loading data. Was happening very frequently a while back, until eventually WoW simply couldn’t run, period. Ran a scandisk and fixed a couple problems, and the issue seemed to go away for a while.

It’s just happened again… Normally clearing the cache fixes things, but not this time. Hoping the repair tool will fix it, so I don’t have to reinstall WoW… I’ve got an Argent Tournament Champion title to defend! 😉

Innundation

Goodness me! Ran 10-man Naxxramas last night with the guild, and every one of the bosses we downed (minus Noth the Plaguebringer) dropped something that Watts could use, and that no one else in the raid needed.

This included:
– Band of Neglected Pleas
– Ring of Holy Cleansing
– Grieving Spellblade
– Aegis of Damnation
– Drape of Surgery
– Two Tier 7 shoulder tokens

The Paladin tokens are shared with Priests and Warlocks — Watts was the only character present who could use the token at all.

More importantly, I had a really good time! I love 10-man raiding, and every time I do a 10-man raid that feeling gets more and more solidified.

Healer Whack-a-Mole

So I’ve gotten Watts, the adorable little Holy Paladin, up to level 80. Have been healing a bunch of Heroic dungeons and whatnot. Last time I played a healer full-time was back in the dawn of WoW when the biggest deal was Molten Core.

(Note: I never actually DID Molten Core. Akhul was a full-time Holy Priest doing dungeons and the occasional Zul’Gurub)

The RAF Program

Last year, Blizzard unveiled the new Recruit-a-Friend program for World of Warcraft.  This was around the time that Guts and I were leveling up some new characters, and we agreed that the program sounded ridiculously awesome and that we should use the program to get the 300% experience and granted levels and zhevra and stuff.

We are coming to the end of our second bout of RAF, and we’ve leveled up quite a few characters, and learned a few things on the way.

When I Rolled a Tank…

… I really didn’t expect to be taken so literally.

I’ve had a great time with a lot of the vehicle stuff that has come with WotLK.  There have been some really clever quests and dailies that wouldn’t have been possible without this new vehicle technology.  I think it’s great!

But I didn’t roll a vehicle when I created Renwald.  When I get to an instance, especially a boss fight (cough Oculus cough), especially the latest and toughest raid (cough Ulduar cough), it becomes painfully clear how much I don’t like having my class skills being taken away from me.  Launching my raid-mates from catapults and laying oil slicks sound great in theory, but I rolled a Warrior, not a catapult.

All my learning, all my gearing, counts for naught when I’m strapped onto a dragon or a motorcycle.  It’s frustrating and a bit disheartening, since I’ve really been excited about Ulduar.  I don’t have to do the vehicle dailies.  I don’t have to do Oculus.  I will have to participate in this vehicular orgy if I want to do Ulduar, by the sound of things.

😦

Here’s hoping it’s not going to be as bad as my gut reaction is telling me it’s going to be…

The Tragic Tale of the Big Pink Jerk

Vengeance is a dish best served .. disappointed.

The photo above requires a bit of background.

Who Am I: Renwald

Renwald: "Uh-huh."

Name: Renwald

Class: Level 80 Human Protection Warrior

/Played: ~14 days altogether. ~5 days at level 80.

I rolled Renwald during my first bout of Refer-A-Friend with my buddy Guts, when the program first came out.  I was more focused on leveling other characters, so Renwald basically started his career naked, broke and skill-less in the middle of Stormwind at a granted level of 40 or so.  I picked him up in earnest after hearing some of the changes in store for Protection Paladins.

Let me explain.