Beta: Retribution Nerf – First Impressions

After I kept reading about the giant nerfbat of doom yesterday, I decided to go home and test my Paladin on the beta to see how bad it was.  Before the nerf, I was pulling anywhere from 1100-1300 dps on sustained fights, while staying at or near full mana.  On the beta yesterday I was averaging about 900 dps on a test dummy.

Some things I noticed:

3 Skill Rotation -  I found that the only mana efficient, and therefore raid viable rotation was Crusader Strike, Divine Storm, and Judgement of Wisdom; I used each ability as often as possible.  As for seals, the most damage came from Matytr, but all seals were within 50 dps of each other.  Suprisingly, Command was a little less strong than Righteousness.  With the 3 skill rotation, using Wisdom as my judgement, I had no issue with mana.

Consecration - When I threw consecration into the mix on a single target, I ran out of mana in just under a minute.  If you conserve mana and don’t use every ability when it becomes available, it is possible to keep from going out of mana, but this is something I would reserve for multiple mobs, as your dps would drop below that of the 3 skill rotation.  Consecration does not return a high amount of damage for the amount of mana it uses, so it’s probably best to leave it out of a rotation on a single target.

It’s Not Very Fun – Prior to this nerf, our damage was more crit based, and large numbers filled the screen.  There was a long pause between the huge numbers, but they were fun to look at.  That damage has been “replaced” by a 40% talentable DoT, so now it supposedly smooths out our damage.  The only issue is that with all the other nerfs, we’re doing less damage than before, and the 3 button spam is not even fun.  At least with the 3 button spam on my Rogue I have to time things and manage an energy bar and the occasional other button to press; with my paladin, it’s just boring.  I feel like a Warrior who’s 51 point talent is like a weaker version of a base Warrior talent, without all of the other toys warriors have to play with.

I plan on running a regular Ramparts again to test the dps data, and compare it to my last Beta DPS post.  Look for that report by Thursday.

- Sam

One Week of 3.0.2

We’ve lived with 3.0.2 for a week, and despite its bugs, the patch isn’t that bad.  That being said, some of the bugs were quite annoying.  Sometimes the lag was a killer, getting booted from the server wasn’t fun, and killing multiple mobs only to find them unlootable was irritating to say the least.

Some things were just great fun though, like the Fel Reavers “jogging” to catch up with the server lag.  Also, leveling my warlock in outland just became a joke, as they really nerfed the experience needed to level from 60-70.  However, the real treat was the Karazhan run we had this weekend. 

My guild hasn’t been progression raiding for a while, and we’ve been running things like Kara and ZA just to stay sharp in our raiding.  We put together a very unlikely group for the run because it was what we had around:

1. MT – Prot Paladin
2. OT/DPS – Ret Paladin  (me)
3. Healers – 3 priests
4. DPS - Shadow Priest, 2 Hunters, 2 Mages

That’s probably the most unlikely group I’ve ever been in, and thanks to the raid nerf we cleared the place in record time, right at two hours.  Some of the boss times were just crazy, like curator enraging before he could evocate, Illhoof only getting one sacrifice in, and Prince in two minutes (with a mage dead the whole time).  I really enjoyed taking my Paladin with a Retribution spec and killing the damage chart.  I was the off tank on two of the fights and still managed to barely top the chart over a very good mage.  Despite my pure DPS spec, I was able to tank when needed and produce good amounts of threat.

All things considered, I think the patch is good, despite it numerous bugs.  My UI is almost completely fixed, and if I can get auctioneer working well again, I’ll be good to go.  I hope everyone else is in roughly the same boat, an things are mostly working as they were two weeks ago.

- Sam

How to tame Uvuros

I’ve received more incoming traffic in the last few days with people looking for a way to tame Uvuros than I’ve seen since I launched this site.  Apparently Uvuros is more popular than Inscription.  Don’t worry though, I tamed him last night, and I’m going to share with you how to pull it off yourself.  It’s not very difficult if you bring the right help (thanks Lyndiana and Yithict).

Preparation:

Grab the nearest available Priesty friend.  The Priest is going to perform two roles for you in the taming process, Fear Ward, and Renew.  Someone suggested I use a Shaman with a tremor totem, but Uvuros’ fear would still go off and break the channeling before it kicked in.

I’m sure you noticed in the picture that I also had a feral druid on hand that wanted to help.  You don’t need to have anyone else beyond the priest, but I wasn’t going to complain about the extra HoT.

The Process:

Before you start the process of taming, you need to throw some shots Uvuros’ way to gain some aggro (5k should be sufficient).  After you have established aggro, have the Priest throw the fear ward on you and begin the tame.  The Priest needs to throw a renew on you often enough to keep you alive, but make sure they do not pull aggro.  That would stop the channeling of tame beast, and probably get you a dead Priest.  Aggro was less of an issue with my group as I had a second “healer,” which is something you might want to consider having.

If everything is done properly, you can enjoy your brand new Lvl 70 Core Hound Pet after about 30 seconds of work.  If you have any questions, feel free to throw them in a comment, and I’ll get back to you.

- Sam

 

1,000 Hits and counting

I originally started this blog as a way to get information out to my guildmates, as a blogspot blog.  After creating my guild’s website though, that blog eventually died out, as no one was reading it anymore.  The guild site became a far more effective and secure tool for communication with the guild. So this blog stopped being updated and sat for 5 months, collecting dust.

Then on September 5th, 2008, I was reading this post at Resto4Life, and got the inspiration to start writing again.  I imported the blog into wordpress, and got to work.  1 month and 10 days later, I’ve written 30 posts, 1 inscription guide, and have just crossed 1,000 views.  That might not be a huge milestone as far as some people are concerned, but it means a lot to me.  It’s nice to know that something I’ve been working on has been noticed and read.  So thanks for stopping by to read some of my work, and if you’ve been here more than once, please reply with a comment, and I’ll make sure to thank you personally.

- Sam

3.0.2

Well, the 3.0.2 patch is upon us.  It still broke my UI, despite my best efforts to be prepared.  I’ll get to work on that tomorrow.  People seem to be genuinely excited to log on, and I keep getting guild messages of achievements everyone is getting.  Overall, I think that my guild will start recruiting again soon now that the player base is more energetic, and start working toward getting our core raid team ready for the expansion.

Inscription

I leveled inscription, and it took significantly less time to follow my guide than it did to make it.  I watched the server like a hawk, and logged on the instant it was up.  I was the only person at the Hellfire trainer, so I was one of the first people on my server to start training it.  I have a ridiculous amount of leftover herbs that I plan on selling in a few days when the supplies that people have built up start to dwindle.

Paladin

The only character that I’ve had the time to talent out is my Paladin, Anabelle.  I’ve gone with a strong Retribution build that’s going to produce damage I haven’t seen on live yet.  Some of the guildies are running heroics this week, and a Karazhan this weekend.  I need the badges for a few more pieces of blue gear that I haven’t replaced, and to test out my new spec in a group environment.  I already know what it will do solo.

Time permitting, I’ll spec out my other toons, and finish leveling my Warlock.  The patch also brought speedy leveling from 60-70, so I might even be able to get that mage up to an acceptable level before Wrath.

Things to do before tomorrow’s patch

With patch 3.0.2 hitting tomorrow, there’s a short list of things that I, and I imagine many other people, need to get accomplished to make the transition as smooth as possible:

1.)  Addons

Tomorrow is going to break your UI.  It’s as simple as that.  I’m fortunate enough to have a beta key, so I know some things that have already been patched, and I can load them up for tomorrow:  Perl (or X-Perl), Outfitter, and Recount being the most notable.  If you use FuBar, it does work with the beta, but some of the modules are borked, although QuestFu is already working, and that’s all I really cared about in beta.

2. Specs

Again having the beta has put me at an advantage here, as I’ve tried a few things already.  I know a good combat spec for my rogue, though I’d like to break out the daggers and see what I can do with the other two specs.  I’ll be going 51/10/0 on my hunter and picking up another core hound, gorilla, and worm.  As for the Paladin, I’m going to level Ret in the Expansion, though I’ll be a tank at level 80.  I’m really looking forward to trying out my spec in Karazhan, and see if I can offtank and DPS as Ret.

3. Inscription

If you read this site regularly, you know that my main goal tomorrow is to level inscription.  I already had more than enough herbs to level it comfortably, but while I was on the beta this week, my wife farmed up another 1000+ herbs for me to use to level.  I’ll either use them to stockpile inks for later, or they’ll become AH fodder either as herbs, pigments, or inks.  As for prep, I need to get everything organized so that I only have to make 1 trip or so back and forth from Honor Hold to Shattrath.

-Sam

Inscription Guide

My Inscription Guide is completed. You can click on the link in the side bar, or you can click here.  It took me about 3 hours to level inscription, but I was taking the time to write everything out.  If you have all of the mats on you when you visit the trainer, you can probably make everything in about an hour.

-Sam

New Beta Patch, Inscription Guide coming soon

I logged in this morning to find a new patch for the beta.  I don’t know that this will be the last patch before the 3.0.2 patch hits live, but I would assume that the changes to inscription at this point would be minor, even if there is another patch before Tuesday.

My warlock has finally been transferred to the beta server.  I actually did some work on her last night, and that work was reflected in the beta copy, so it’s a good thing I didn’t send the herbs back from her to my bank alt to save space.  I also did a little organizing in my bags to make it easier to find them in live, and that of course held true in the beta.

If I have the time tonight, I’ll level Inscription and write my Inscription Leveling Guide.  I’ll provide an updated list of materials needed, as well as the leveling path I used.  Look for the guide tomorrow or Friday. 

- Sam

Beta: Retribution DPS

In the Beta, Retribution is a very good spec.  I will probably be a tank at 80, but for leveling, I think that I will find a big hammer and swing it.  Today I’m going to break down the new abilities in Ret that make it viable, and show you recount data from soloing Hellfire Ramparts to give you some of my first impressions of how to play a Ret Paladin while soloing.  It’s a fairly in-depth look at the core abilities you will use if you spec Retribution for PvE.

 

We Haz Core Hound

Edit:  We’ve tamed Uvuros in live.  How do you do it?  Click here.

Yup, as a 51 point Beast Master, you too can get yourself a cuddly puppy too.  This is a spawn of Uvuros from Shadowmoon Valley.  We wanted Uvuros himself, but we don’t know enough people in beta to help us get him. The best way I could figure out to tame Uvuros is to have a caster throw a few HoTs on us to live long enough to tame him, have them run away, and hope that he doesn’t fear.  If you’ve done it yourself, or have a better idea, let me know, I’m all about taming Uvuros if I can make it happen.