Hello Paladin, Hello Job

What’s new?

1. I finally got a job. This will significantly reduce the time I can invest in the game and updating the blog. This isn’t bad though. I’ll try deliver more quality post, which really should answer any questions a resto shaman could have. Tankingtips.com is an excellent example of a quality blog, which doesn’t need a new post every 1-2 days to be of interest. I’ll have to be realistic though, even if quality before quantity is the goal, I can almost guarantee some future rants/fun posts.

2. My paladin got to level 80 in a big effort of power leveling. Paladin Healing is better than I thought. I like to pace of healing, I like the small but strong arsenal of healing spells, which isn’t that different from shaman healing. Holy Beacon, Flash of Light HoT and Sacred Shield also offer a nice number of buffs you’ll have to watch closely as a healer. Healing a Tank through The Beacon is really awesome once you get used to it. Especially if tanks run out of your heal range and you can still heal them through another party member.

Paladin tanking was pretty much what I expected: Incredible AoE DPS/Threat but a slightly monotonous 696 rotation. It isn’t as boring as druid tanking, but far from the fun I have while I enjoy the mobility/gadgets/snappy snap aggro of my warrior tank. If only prot warriors would do halfway decent DPS.

3. I ran tons of normal mode Dungeons through LFD. The problem I see is this:

• Cross-realm grouping is really encouraging bad behavior. On my realm, I quickly get a bad reputation if I suck at playing or even worse, behave like a total idiot. In cross realm groups, you don’t have to fear any consequences for ignorance/ninja looting/leaving the group.
• Normal mode Dungeons are especially bad, because 90% of the players are in blues/greens, with dual spec and rolling Need on everything, that looks slightly attractive.
• The offspec vs mainspec question: This is really tricky. If you only roll on the gear your playing at this moment, you probably won’t get any loot. Whenever I healed, tons of DPS/tanks would roll on healer (=mp5) loot. Especially shields/trinkets/rings will often lead to 3-4 people rolling Need. Tanking is even worse. Plate wearing DPS will nearly always roll on nice tank drops, especially in HoR. I’m still not sure if it’s better to be nice (and really being punished loot-wise for fair game) or roll on offspec myself from time to time (with the risk of stealing loot from a decent person).
• Pre-raiding BiS items in non heroic dungeons are horrible. I’m talking about tank cloak/shield in Halls of Reflection and to some extent DPS ring in Pit of Saron. Tons of people will leave the group instantly if the loot they want doesn’t drop.
• The climate in heroic LFD is a lot better. Most people are polite, are decently geared and will only roll on the spec they’re playing.

4. I got my 4pcT10. Early data looks promising, this could be topic of a future post.

5. Valithria Dreamwalker is in fact a very fun fight for us healers. It’s a nice change to concentrate purely on HPS for once, using haste pots and so forth. I like the encounter.

What’s up with you guys?