It's okay...let go...shhh. Just let go.

I know that it is a tough time in your life. You have grown attached to your level 70 epics, and you can't bear to be without them.

I understand - I feel the same way.

But we have to remember, we felt this heartbreak before. Remember how much it hurt to let go of our level 60 epics? We laughed, we cried, we loved, but most importantly, we let go and moved on and in the end, wasn't it better? I bet you don't even think about your old level 60 stuff anymore except as a small chuckle at how naive you were back then.

Just let go. It's time for you to move on to something better in your life.

Ret paladins are hybrids, so act like it!

Patch 3.0 has presented the Retribution Paladin with a unique opportunity to fill a niche that has never been present before. This most recent patch has given us the chance to do substantial DPS and at the same time provide efficient, fast, powerful heals.

Every Retribution Paladin that I see has the talents The Art of War and Sheath of Light but many of us refuse to heal.

You are doing it wrong, and for the sake of us all I am going to have to ask you to stop failing.

If you have the ability to cast instant heals of a substantial amount, then why wouldn't you? I have to ask because in every raid I go to, every PUG I run in there is always a retribution paladin (they're everywhere now. Seriously, did everyone just bring their paladin out of retirement?) This retribution paladin is pretty good at the DPS thing but they never heal except through use of Divine Storm. Come on - be the hybrid that you are supposed to be. Here are some tips for you new ret paladins out there:

1. Just because you CAN lay down massive burst DPS doesn't mean you should. Please wait for threat.
2. When your Art of War procs, use the heal.
   
3. Judge light or wisdom (dependant on your party make-up). Use justice only on runners that stand a chance of escaping. (escape? LOLOL)
4. Keep Hand of Protection and Hand of Salvation on your bars. Use them.
5. Bubble if you pull threat. Stop attacking and let the tank regain threat. See tip #4.
   
6. Repentance isn't just for show. Use it.

Any other ret paladins care to add anything?

Unreasonable: Professional Swordsmith

We are redeemed! It is finally okay to be a paladin and a blacksmith.

I was sitting on alert with Brian (we spend a lot of time together due to work. It's not a gay thing...too often) and he was yammering on about how great the expansion is going to be. Me being a naturally dismissive person said "We'll see."

Then he mentioned the changes to blacksmithing and directed me to this site. Then I had to change my pants. I will sum it up for those of you who are thinking TL;DR.

1. Ability to craft sockets (in the form of items such as beltbuckles). Sellable.
2. Armor that DOESN'T suck ass and adds ridiculous stats!
   
3. Weapons that will actually sell on the AH.
   

There you go.

Paladin DPS. Don't cry about it - you had it coming.

In the English language, there are a finite combination of words to be used, some of which I never thought I would hear. One of these combinations is "overpowered retadins". The other is "negro president" but this blog isn't prepared to handle the epic awesomeness of that second one so I will get back to the "overpowered retadins".

For some reason, I have a hard time sympathizing with people who get killed by retribution paladins. They die because they don't respect the ret tree. For far too long, people have been accustomed to retribution paladins being weak and easy targets. Now that a patch comes that gives retribution paladins a fighting chance (in some cases, it is sort of imbalanced) all of a sudden, they're overpowered? I'm confused.

The complaining in PvE bewilders me to an even greater degree. Call me strange, but don't you want every raid DPS pushing as much as they can? Don't you want to move faster and have more mana regen and off heals? People who call for a retribution nerf in PvE because of some misplaced sense of pride are silly. It isn't hurting you in the least that a retribution paladin is putting out more damage than you - at least the PvPers have a valid complaint. What's yours?

Paladin tanking, I iz doing it rong?

So again, me and Brian were discussing WoW and we get into a heated debate (we both have prot paladins). We were talking about the great changes to the protection tree and some of the not so great ones (like, totally cutting out 40 defense rating for us. Good game.) We eventually get to talking about tanking weapons and again, we reach a fork.

1. Brian uses a spellpower weapon
2. I use a real man's weapon
   

Normally, I would just call him a fag and punch him for suggesting that I am somehow wrong but since I was feeling merciful, I heard him out.

Kinda wish I had just punched him in the arm.

He then uses the logic on me and explains that while his Hammer of the Righteous may be gimped, his overall TPS is higher due to the constant Consecrate paired with scaling Retribution Aura. I don't know...Iz I doin it rong?

Paladin healing, two schools of thought.

My friend and I (who am I kidding? I don't have friends) were discussing the various methods of paladin healing with this most recent patch and we came to two equally relevant methods of paladin healing.

1. The good ol' mash of light
2. The riskier, but more fun, holy light rotation

My buddy, who I shall refer to as Brian from here on out (since that is his name) is a proponent of method 2, whereas I am a user of method 1. The first method isn't anything new or exciting to the paladin community so I'll paraphrase the technique:

1. /cast Flash of Light [rank boring]

The second method is what we spent the greater part of half an hour discussing. His argument is that a paladin, if using the Glyph of Holy Light paired with Beacon of Light can effectively keep a main tank up while meleeing the boss using Seal of Wisdom to sustain his/her mana. Here are some fast numbers to justify this claim:

Holy light will heal a raid member for 4k. The 4k will instantly transfer to the MT due to beacon of light. In addition to the 4k, the tank will recieve 5 addtional heals for 400 due to the Glyph of holy light bringing the total amount healed to 6k on the main tank. Brian is a fucking genius.

Share your thoughts on this.

A new beginning!

Hello again! Some of you were readers of the blog "road to the darkside", a chronicle of a holy paladin's descent into darkness.

I'm not so angry anymore, and with the expansion coming out I feel that it is time to start intermittently blogging again. This blog will be updated once or twice a week with whatever topic I feel like talking about.