Anyway as has been discussed in this blog previously I have pretty much finalized my gear plan and my gear goals until the next content is released. It is a fluid list that can be modified and adapted to any situation that could arise but in reality I am fairly happy with the choices on the list and thus I have already started working towards getting those pieces.

So the drama started when after the Heigan kill the Breastplate of Tormented Rage dropped. I am currently wearing the Heroes Redemption Breastplate (t7) and my gear plan has me upgrading to the Valorous Redemption Breastplate
(t7.5) which drops off the 4 horseman chest. Now when you look at the comparison between the BoTR and the HRB yes it is an upgrade but at the same time we easily kill 4 horsemen each week so it is not a long shot that within the next week or so I could have the token piece for the t7.5 chest. So I did not Bid on the BoTR. Both of the other tanks already had it so it was sharded. This made one of the officers upset since he felt I should have taken that chest piece since there is no guarantee the pally chest token will drop next week. Which is very true who knows when a certain loot piece is going to drop. But I really am not depending on that piece for any progression kill so I am content with waiting until I get my chance at the loot I want for my gear plan.

I just could not get him to understand my point of view and while I could fully understand what he meant, I would not embrace his point of view either. So it was a stalemate.

I think some people think I am hoarding my EPGP points for the better gear and they feel that is wrong. I guess in some ways you look at it I am doing that, but they feel like all the best loot pieces are on the very end boss’s and that is not always true. On this same night I won the Ablative Chitin Girdle from Maxeena (#1 belt on my list) and the Mantle of the Lost Conqueror token off Loatheb. (holy shit those shoulders are ugly) As a side note I had technically won the shoulder token the week prior but one of the other tanks was still wearing the Saronite shoulders so I passed the token to him. Loot whore is not something I consider myself.

So how do you handle planning for loot? In my opinion it was not worth it to me to win a chest piece that might only last me for a week or so and by taking it hurt my chances at some of the other loot pieces. Do not get me wrong if the t7.5 token dropped off a boss that we were not killing or I felt that the other piece would give us a better chance at a progression kill than I would have taken it in a heartbeat, but that is not the case. Guess it all just comes down to how everything is perceived.

I have been sitting in front of two monitors for the past 10 hours with WoW Armory on one with my character profile and Aleyona from Maintankadins Gear List  on the other screen. I have went through every single piece of gear I currently have equipped, and than compared it to each individual piece on that list and than worked out with proper gemming and enchants what I would be gaining and losing by equipping that piece.  As has beem previously discussed I suck at math so this has been like a 10 hour homework assignment for me.

Anyway I was just putting the final touches on my list and starting to number each one in the order I rank them when I decided to take a break and read some forums for a little while to give me eyes a break.

So I venture on over to the Maintankadin Forums and low and behold Cidx has posted his Best In Slot Gear List , and not only is it a easy to follow list but he goes into detail about why he has chosen each and every piece. After looking at the list I realized that with the exception of the legs and the 2nd ring we agreed on every single choice. Problem is after reading his conclusions for choosing which one he did I have managed to see the error in my ways and I now agree with him totally. (Hey I said I sucked at math but at least I was trying)

** note ** If you have never heard of the site it was a little overwhelming the first time I went to it. From my limited understanding it scans millions of blogs in the world and when one is updated it automatically puts the blog on the front page. I have found some that are very interesting and I have added them to my blog reader and some that just make me wonder what kind of people read these blogs (a blog for dinnerware!?!?!?!?!?)

To assist you with this matter I would like to point you to a post on the Random Ravings of Warcraft Blog that very nicely details all things Lunar along with a step by step approach to getting all the coins.    LINK TO POST

It all started when I saw a group advertising they needed a Tank for H CoT. It is one of the more fun instances for a pally tank so I decided to offer my services. Once getting in the group we only needed a healer before we could start and before long a healer from my guild joined the group. The group had no more than got filled up when the mage says he wants us to let him have the frozen orb since he needs it. We politely explain that he is welcome to greed on it just like everyone else. At this point he starts cursing and telling us how horrible we are. Me and the healer discuss in guild chat that we are not willing to risk getting locked to an instance with a person like this in the group. So we both drop group. Seconds later I get a tell from the mage screaming at me to which I politely respond, “and you have a nice day also”, but he had already ignored me. (side note: you ever notice how when someone is really pissed off at you that by being even nicer to them is just makes them that more mad? Isn’t that a lot of fun to do? )

So anyway me and the healer drop group and start looking to make another instance run. Before we get to far though the original group creator from our first fail group whispers me that he kicked the mage and would we please come back. We discuss it and surprisingly we decided to go back to the group. Fill the last dps slot and off to CoT we go.

The group make up looked like this : Paladin Tank (me), Paladin Healer, Paladin DPS (ret), Death Knight DPS, and a Hunter dps. Interesting group make up but since both the healer and I were decently geared we thought we would be fine.

Prior to starting the event I tell everyone I would like to push hard for the Drake Timer but if we realized we were not going to make it we would just slow down. I honestly knew from the start we would never make the timer but since I really wanted the Bronze Drake I needed all the practice I could get with speeding up pulls and killing mobs.

The event starts and we tear though the mobs like a hot knife through butter. 3 paladins in a group can really mess up a bunch of bad undead guys. The ret pally was running ahead of the group aggroing all the little mobs and I was pulling all the large groups to him and together we would just AoE the crap out of them. Now I would like to say that at this point in time I was watching the timer but honestly I was having so much fun speed pulling and running thru the instance I was not even thinking about it. The first 3 boss’s went down with no trouble at all and the only real downtime we had was waiting for the very mouthy Artha’s to keep spitting out his role playing mumbo jumbo. (another note: after about 10 times in an instance there should be a way to skip all the non important talking bits and just let there be more killing of mobs)

We reached the back bookcase and went through and got ready for the last gauntlet. At this point we had a little less than 5 minutes left on the timer and it was looking like we might have a real shot at the Infinite Corruptor. I tell everyone to just keep up with me since I am not stopping.

Myself and the ret pally start grabbing mobs and just pulling them through the gauntlet. The best way I have found for me is to run about 1/3 of the way into the gauntlet. Get good AoE threat going on them and than just start backing my way through the gauntlet pulling the mobs as I go and making any new mobs run though my consecration.

In party chat I tell everyone to not talk to Arthas at the end of the gauntlet since we are going directly to the optional boss (big thanks to Tankspot forums for even pointing out this is possibly, most people think you have to kill Mal’ganis and than Infinite Corruptor, but that is not true)

Gauntlet comes to an end and we have less than 2 minutes. Anxiety is starting to build in me at this point. I take off racing towards where the optional boss should be and when I look up there are still 2 party members standing at Arthas and telling me to come back that the boss is the other way. (ok so maybe not all the fail was kicked out of the party at the beginning)

Lucky for me the healer is with me and 1 dps so I tell the other 2 to get over to us and I engage Infinite Corruptor.  At this point we have a little less than a minute to kill him. I some how remembered reading some place (probably Tankspot or Maintankadin) that when the timer is up he walks back to the portal and through so if you are running really close on time pull him away from the portal to give the group a few extra seconds to kill him before he reaches the portal. So I start pulling him back towards the entrance to Mal’ganis’ room and when I reach about ¾ of the way back to Arthas the timer expires and he starts heading towards the portal. All out dps and when he is about 2 feet from the portal he falls over dead. 5 party members all get the Achievement : The Culling of Timer  and in the loot window is the Reins of the Bronze Drake . I tell everyone to roll need so there are no mistakes. I figure with the terrible luck I normally have on these random drops than I have about a snowball’s chance in hell of getting it and I start heading back to Arthas to finish the instance. Imagine my surprise when I see that I won the roll. This short rolly polly plate wearing dwarf was dancing all over that instance (all over my office in real life also. But I am not a dwarf in real life. But I am rolly polly. But if we ever meet I would probably not start off the conversation with Hi Mr. Rolly Polly)

So we finish the instance and I am still just astounded that not only did we get the timer achievements but we did it with a PuG group that started off so full of fail that 2 of us had left the group and had to nearly be begged to go back to. In the end though it all worked out.

1) I Can Haz Cheezburger (lolcatz)

2) I Haz a Hotdog (loldogz)

So if you are having a Blah kind of day give these a try.

Yeah I am the person who sent him that email and I really appreciate his thoroughness in answering my question and not only that but doing a full blog post on the subject. If you are a protection paladin looking for direction and advice I can not say enough about how helpful Honorshammer is and has been to me. I have sent emails out to other bloggers I am lucky if I get back a few word response but the 2 times I have contacted Honorshammer he has been most helpful both in email and blog form with answering my questions.

Now as for the gear question he answers I truly do suck at math and as much as I hate it I am now following his advise and going though each possible upgrade and comparing it to my current gear and seeing both the plus and minus of switching to that gear piece. The one problem I am having as we progress though Naxx 25 is that while I am staying above 540 defense it is not by much and since I put a lot more value on high effective health pieces this sometimes leaves me getting very close to falling below 540 and thus several times I have had to switch gems or gear around to maintain that level.

One thing I am happy about is that now after this last patch and the few upgrades I got last week I am sitting close 38k health fully buffed, defense capped, and over the 102.4% block cap. So I am really starting to feel like I am able to main tank pretty much any encounter currently in game. There are still some major upgrades for me in Naxx 25 but for some of them they are becoming more “sidegrades” or pieces I would use in specific instances.

Another note is that while I do carry numerous pieces of gear with me for almost any situation I encounter I am not like most tanks that have whole sets for trash, and this mob, and that boss, and this pull here, and that pull over there. Ever since I started tanking it has been driven into my head that threat will come with a good rotation and defense will come with better gear, but you always need more health so you can take more hits. I know that is a subject of much conflict on a lot of websites about how each tank gears but that has fit my play style best and the one I feel most comfortable with. Plus I do not really see any point to gearing for threat right now since Pallys have absolutely no problem holding threat on trash or boss’s over anyone other than another pally.

Anyway I read about 75 different blogs every day and it was through a feed that I got redirected to a site called Binary Colors. (sorry but I am not sure what site redirected me to this site) I have never ever been to this site, but after reading the 1st blog post I was hooked and went back and read every blog post this author had posted. One warning is it is not totally safe for less mature people and you might not want your boss to look over your shoulder and read all the text. There are no inappropriate images but they use very forceful language where they feel it is called for. To be honest it fits so well in the context of how they write I can not imagine it without it.

So the first blog I read is titled Writer’s Blah. This is a masterpiece for people like me who through the art of procrastination stayed away from my writing for a while and ended up getting into a cycle of continually making excuses to stay away for longer. Reading this blog did something that I myself have been unable to accomplish for over a month, it got me writing again. Not any better writing than before, actually right now it looks a lot worse than my other writing, but I figure there is no place to go but up and at least I am putting words down again. We all have to start some place.

One other warning about Binary Colors: I would like to suggest that you have nothing in your mouth the first time you start reading the blog post. I made the terrible mistake of drinking a Nestea Lemon while reading it for the first time and it did not feel very good coming out of my nose when I started laughing uncontrollably. Of course if you like that type of thing than just disregard previously issued warning.

** UPDATE ** After doing some searching I found out it was Galadria at Galadria’s Corner.

2nd I have renamed 2 of my characters upon transfer. My pally went from being Honorshammer to being LittleHonors.  I was starting to feel like a closet stalker to the real Honorshammer so I made the choice about LittleHonors. I still have Honors in my name though to show respect to how much Honor’s Code
Blog has taught me as a player. I also changed the name of the warrior from Durik to Molle.  As I have said previously the warrior started off as my wife’s character so it was a female character and it just felt weird having this pretty human female warrior named Durik. When I used to play Eve Online the head of the corporation I was in was named SirMolle and since he was the person I most respected in that game I chose the Molle part of his name. Plus it really suits my female character much better