The Dark Side of the Tank

Initially I was going to write a post about Smart Casual's progress in the second week in Ulduar. We downed a further new boss each night, adding Kologarn, Aurianya, and Hodir to our list of kills. I've really enjoyed the fights, it's amazing watching the chaotic early attempts give way to a smooth(ish) takedown.

But instead, I'm going to switch tack and talk about Death Knights. Yep, with Dual Specialization, I decided to give Graysun a tank spec again and see where that led. As it turns out, it led to a Naxxramas raid for Smart Casual's alts.

Currently he's specced 53/8/10 for Blood-Tanking funsies. I've always had a weak spot for Blood Spec, with it's combination of Ret Paladin damage tropes and vampiric healing. And it's great for many things, Gray's base health is awesome, and his single target threat is pretty solid. However, it's kinda let down in the AoE faceroll department. I have to blow about 5-6 global cooldowns to get solid AoE threat. And if you try asking an alt DPSer to wait that long, you might as well ask a Crocodile to help you translate Urdu.

So I'm regrettably I'm considering a switch to something slightly more Unholy, like 10/8/53 to get the best AoE threat abilities. Blood will have to wait until the day Graysun steps into Ulduar. (hey, it could happen!)

3.1.1 and Other quick updates

So we had a mini-patch on Wednesday, dropping some nerfs to the Ulduar bosses and a PVP nerf to Paladins (Exorcism can no longer target other players). I get why they did it, but losing one of Ret's few ranged PVP moves kinda sucks. They're promising to reverse it when they have a chance to make Ret DPS more "interesting". Given they've be wrestling that one since Classic, I'm not holding my breath.

I am looking forward to the nerfed Ulduar bosses though. It's not that I don't like a challenge, it's just that I think the 10-man was tested by people in 25-man gear for the most part (given how easy Naxx25 was to pug). It was definately doable, but the margin for error felt a little tight. I'm hoping the balance is now a little more towards the "fun" side of the spectrum.

Ah well, we're back in tonight, let's see how it goes.

3.1 - Ulduar and one week in...

Well my original intention was to do a big post detailing the boss kills we've done in Ulduar 10 since it was launched last week, but a punishing raid schedule, a busy work week and a newly-blooming social life have pretty much confounded me. Suffice to say:

* Smart Casual have now downed five bosses in their first week in Ulduar: Flame Leviathan, Razorscale, XT-001 Deconstructor, Ignis the Furnace Master and the Iron Council. The fights are relatively complicated and fun for 10-man fights, reminding me a lot of the Zul'Aman fights. They're tuned to be pretty challenging for a group which is only wearing 10-man drops.

* I also love the new Wintergrasp boss, Emalon the Storm-Watcher. It's a real test of skill, especially for the typically melee-heavy PVP pugs who are used to doing it. I'm glad I do it in guild groups for the most part.

* Retribution Paladins are up there with Death Knights as the most common DPSers in PuG raids and Wintergrasp. Much as I love my Ret offspec, I feel like a fecking sheep! It's almost enough to drive me to Holy!

* Add the new 2-min cooldown Divine Protection to the "Things I like about 3.1" list. It's the mutt's nuts, and it synergises nicely with Divine Sacrifice. I'm going to chain the two together in a macro for those times where the raid damage is more dangerous than the boss damage.

Things I like about 3.1 so far...

Well we europeans got 3.1 last night and although I didn't do any raiding, I got to play with the new mechanics. These are the things I love so far:

* Dual-Speccing: I am addicted to this feature. Having the ability to switch between Retribution and Protection with a 5-second cast is seriously fun. I've always liked Retribution, but having carved Ulushnar a niche as a decent Tank, I was unwilling to ever give that up. Now I no longer have to worry about it, and I'm actually considering some casual PVP as Ret with a friend. In fact I suspect armory lurkers will probably see Ulushnar in his Ret gear as much as his Prot gear.

* The new Guarded By The Light: I'd read about it, but some part of me refused to believe it. A 100% chance to refresh Divine Plea just by hitting someone?!! It sounded like madness but I now have the evidence of mine eyes. This is the kind of skill I've been wanting since Chaotic Divinity's Gruul days. I can finally keep up a solid threat rotation as an off-tank without going out of mana.

* Sacred Shield/the new Divine Guardian: Ok, so Sacred Shield got nerfed to one target per Paladin. But it was also made useful to Retribution and Protection Paladins with two sneaky buffs. The first was the fact that it now benefitted from the spellpower given by Sheath of Light and Touched by the Light. Wether this was a concious change or a bug fix I don't know but it was overdue. The second was the Divine Guardian talent, which now forms a staple of both my Protection and Retribution specs. It increases the duration and effectiveness of Sacred Shield. Of course it also makes it another button I have to press in my crowded rotations, but I can probably spare the Global Cooldown once a minute.

Tonight, we're going to Ulduar, let's see how that works out.

On timing...

So Blizzard release 3.1 and suddenly I go from scraping eight people together for Naxx to having 13-15 signs for each day. If I wasn't already a withered, bitter lump of Scottishness I'd go on a rant against human nature. Instead I'll complain about how this patch hits just after the beginning of the financial year, so I'm pretty busy at work, and spending all my spare time doing Guild admin for my freshly-interested guildies.

Further to my last post, I've revised my planned Protection spec to a slightly more cookie-cutterish 0/53/18 after being convinced of Crusade and Conviction's superiority over Seals of the Pure. I'm not getting rid of Pursuit of Justice though.

3.1 Preparations

Well, 3.1's been confirmed as incoming this week, and we'll finally be able to see if it was worth the wait.

Of course, along with Ulduar, the big change in 3.1 is the introduction of Dual specs, the ability to store and switch between two separate specs, with their own action bars and glyphs. With this in mind, here's my thoughts on how Ulu will be speccing come 3.1:

Tank Spec: 0/53/18

I really like Pursuit of Justice, and I've missed it since I specced out of it. Yes, I could get a run speed enchant, but it's just not the same thing!

Major Glyphs

Glyph of Righteous Defense -> Glyph of Divine Plea Righteous Defense barely gets used since Ulu got Hand of Reckoning, so it seems a good place to swap in the new hotness.
Glyph of Judgement -> Glyph of Exorcism If you use Exorcism ever second cooldown, then this glyph wins over the Glyph of Judgement. It's also nice for more burst at the pull.
Glyph of Seal of Vengeance -> Glyph of Seal of Vengeance Still absurdly overbudget and I'll probably use it until I end up with a prohibitive amount of Expertise from gear.

DPS Spec: 0/17/54

I know some folks are going into Holy for Aura Mastery, but the extra healing from Divinity will be nice with Divine Storm, JoL and Art of War. Plus I'm tempted by seeing how Divine Sacrifice can help out in a splash damage-heavy fight, and Divine Guardian will be nice now that Sacred Shield is single target-only.

Major Glyphs

Glyph of Seal of Blood - Now that Rets don't have Spiritual Attunement, it's going to be important to get some mana back.
Glyph of Exorcism - More damage is always good.
Glyph of Judgement - See above.

Minor Glyphs (both specs): I don't see these changing, given that the selection of Paladin minor glyphs are less than inspiring.

Glyph of Blessing of Might
Glyph of Lay on Hands
Glyph of Sense Undead