Block Rating, more like Suck Rating!

If there's one question doing the rounds at Maintankadin at the moment that makes me especially sad it's the perennial "Is my Block % too low?"

The answer is simply this: no, never.

I can't blame the players. A disproportionately high amount of Naxx and even Ulduar gear has this crap stat on it, especially our Tier 7 and Tier 8 sets. If you started tanking to get your guild through Ulduar in a set made from Naxx25 cast-offs, then you'd end up thinking it's a useful stat, especially when you see that several of your prot talents play off blocks.

Block Rating has, (or rather, had) a place. For Heroics and Tier 7 content, getting your Block, Parry, Dodge and miss chance to add up to 102.4% guarantees you significant damage mitigation. But really, if you're going to MT anything past Naxx, then drop the block first chance you get. Even with the increase to Block Value on items in 3.2, it's still better to avoid one hit than block two-three.

With Ulu currently, I have replaced every piece of Block Rating gear on him, except his T8 shoulders and helm, and the first chance I get, they'll be gone as well. Getting high avoidance and enough health to survive reasonable damage are always my priorities. Block Rating is something I'll take if I really have no better option.

Still alive!

Oh hai, haven't updated this for a bit! Here's a brief summary of what's been going on in Spacegoatland:

*The week after the Mimiron kill we managed our first General Vezax kill and got a look at the Yogg-Saron fight. Didn't get through Phase One due to people not dodging clouds correctly.

*The week after that, Ulu's Ret set got a boost in the form of Ironsoul. Mimiron proceeded to be an asshole and it took about 5-6 hours spread over three raids to finally down him. No General kill this week. Still, he gave Ulu a nifty hat, which also gave him a 2-piece bonus.

*After the adjustments in 3.1.3 this week, Mimiron went down first try last night. Presently only Freya stands between us and the General. Hopefully we'll get some decent attempts on Yogg again this week!

30k Health woo-hoo!

Ulushnar hit 30k unbuffed health last night.

OK, so I'll admit I hate tanks who go on about their hit points like it's the only thing that matters. Still, it's nice to get there under my own standards.

* I only have one Stamina trinket equipped.
* With the exception of his Tier 7.5 gloves and Naxx25 ring, all his gear is from 10-mans.
* He has the minimum Defense needed to be uncrittable to raid bosses.
* He's block capped with raid buffs.
* His avoidance doesn't totally suck ass (just under 52% unbuffed).
* He doesn't have any Tier 8 yet, and maintains his T7 4-piece bonus.
* All enchants/gems are best-in-slot. No +sta armor kits on the gloves.

Utterly crushed six bosses in Ulduar 10 last night. Left a few farm bosses for the follow-up raids and a bunch of training time on Freya and Mimiron, our current targets.

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!)

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

Hi, I'm Space Goat!

Well here it is, the much-threatened rebranding.

Drawing on one of the greatest television shows ever as inspiration for the name at least felt right. The content will unfortunately be the same rambling about tanking as a Paladin and running a small guild that I've maintained up until now. I'll try to make it entertaining, but I can promise it'll be self-involved at least!

Well what's there to say? Big changes in the Prot field promised in 3.1.

Divine Guardian is going the way of the Do-do, and it looks like we're getting something similar, Divine Sacrifice as an 11 point talent. The big difference is it isn't tied to Divine Shield so it'll allow us to use this ability whilst keeping aggro.

Why would we want a talent that makes us more damage? Well say you've got a fight where the boss damage is relatively insignificant, but the raid damage adds up (Loatheb springs to mind) then it's a way to absorb some of the damage. Another example would be a boss where you only tank him for part of the fight, like Hydross in SSC.

It's certainly going to give us some unique utility in 3.1, but I don't think (as the Chicken Little brigade may claim) that it's going to make us into off-tanks.

I'm also interested in the new Glyph of Divine Plea that offers 3% damage reduction when DP is up. I wonder if that, combined with the new Guarded By The Light (50/100% chance to refresh DP's duration when you hit a target) is intended to replace Blessing of Sanctuary. It feels a little clunky, but it could be what's on the dev's mind, which concerns me.

Enter Alter Ego!

Imagine a conversation between my plate-clad alter-egos; Ulushnar, a T7-clad Tankadin and Graysun, a freshly-80 Deathnub.

Ulushnar: So Gray, how's tanking working out for you?
Graysun: Not so great as it happens.
Ulushnar: How so?
Graysun: I'm not finding a lot of love in pick-up groups and whenever I try to tank for guildies, well frankly they wish I was you.
Ulushnar: That's fair, I am pretty awesome after all, but honestly, why should it matter in Naxxramas?
Graysun: Y'see, I think that's part of the problem. To the minds of the DPS, it's "just Naxx" so they throw caution to the wind, and splat, we're suddently 8-manning Patchwerk.
Ulushnar: So you were Hateful Strike tanking? I've never done that either and I' probably have f**ked it up as well.
Graysun: Possibly, but burst threat ain't my thing like yours. You might have given the Rogue and Fury Warrior some room to wiggle before they became raspberry jam.
Ulushnar: So that's it, one fight and you're calling it quits?
Graysun: Nah, whilst I accept I'm not an amazingly-geared tank I'm also fairly new on the learning curve Death Knight-wise. They accepted that with Halendir when he started because by the time he was coming into his own, you and Bele were getting bored with heroics, but by now they're purpled-out "pros" and don't like being threat-capped. It's like you always say...
Ulushnar: Gnome girls reach the spots others miss?
Graysun: No, well yes, that too; but what I meant was you've always said "the most important thing for a tank is confidence". I don't have that yet.
Ulushnar: Fair enough, so what now?
Graysun: Well I'm going back to DPS, but probably not Blood. If there's one good thing I picked up from the spec that Halendir gave to me, it's that Unholy's buckets o' fun.
Ulushnar: So you're becoming a Platelock then?
Graysun: Yep, I guess. I specced that way last night. It's pretty sweet, especially with the 2pc Tier 7 I picked up on Sunday. Did a couple of Pugs last night. Occulus was suprisingly decent, we managed to one-shot everything. After that I did Nexus with another group and I had to keep checking I wasn't in Frost Presence, the tank just couldn't keep the mobs off me. The AoE's pretty sick.

Rebranding

Well the old Wulfsblood.net domain finally expired on me. I'll be sorting out a new one in a few days, to reflect the point that I really haven't done much huntering in the last year or so. In the meantime, feel free to point your links at:

http://ulushnar.blogspot.com

Until I can find something better.

I really haven't updated this thing in about three weeks now, so apologies. In the interim, I finally got off my arse and got Graysun, my Death Knight, to 80. Originally I wanted to make him a DPS/PVP character, but the sad realities of getting pugs has forced me to spec him as a tank. I took the advice of our DK tank and specced him Unholy, although now that I've played with him a while, I'm starting to get a better idea of what's required.

I will say though that DPSing/Tanking as a Death Knight has given me a new appreciation of how much easier we have it. The lack of reliable frontloaded aggro is a massive pain when pugging in particular. When I went back to playing Ulu, I almost laughed at how easy it was.

Speaking of Ulu, I've hadd occasion to experiment with him as Retribution in Naxx10-level gear and I really liked the results! I cannot wait for dual speccing in 3.1! Also, Ulu finally got his 4th piece of T7 on Friday past. He now has everything except the crappy helm. I'm looking forward to trying my bubble wall out on something big and nasty before much longer.

Ulu's gearing philosophy in WotLK

I've been kinda lazy about gear in WotLK, I guess.

Now let me clarify that. I enchant all Ulu's gear to a decent standard, put in the best quality gems possible and aim for basic goals like the 102.4% block cap after getting essentials like the 540 Defense minimum. (I was actually tempted to call it "the Defense Cap" to see if certain posters from MTadin read this.)

But I just haven't cared too much about how my stats measured up. Back when I was in 25-mans, I used to build sets for better avoidance, mitigation, health, threat, etc. These days I don't bother. My avoidance scrapes along at a measly 48-50%, my health sits between 25.5k and 26.8k depending on what trinkets I feel like equipping, and I've started stacking Strength and Block Value like it's going out of fashion.

I'm not a threat whore, I'm a DPS whore. One of the nicest things about WoW v3.0 is the ability of Paladin Tanks to do significant damage whilst tanking. Whilst the days where Ulu could top the DPS meter whilst tanking Heroic Stratholme are sadly behind him, any time I can push him into the top five in Naxx10, I'm happy.

Outside of Magylos, it's the only challenge currently in the game for a tank.

I'm MT

So last night I pugged the Vault of Archavon 10-man with Ulu. I really wasn't that bothered about it, but hell, an ex-raidmate was looking for a tank and I figured I could give them 10 minutes.

So I arrive there and the Warrior says, "I'm MT, Ulu's OT, ok?", I say "'Spose" and then swap JoL and JoW on my action bar so my wacky JoL threat doesn't pull aggro. (Yes I use JoL, but mainly because I run with a Ret Paladin and it's better I use it than he does.)

So we pull the first trash mob. Admittedly I was reckless, dived in with Avenger's shield because I figure "It's trash, who's gonna care?" Obviously he doesn't get aggro back and afterwards I got the reminder "I'm MT!" (He was a man of few words.)

So I figure I'll behave. He goes in, I follow, Judge Wisdom, Shield of Righteousness, Hammer of the Righteous and then I have Aggro. after that there was a

"Don't use taunt Ulu, I'm MT"
"I didn't."

This behavior repeated itself on the next two trashmobs and we're standing at the boss. After reminding me for the umpteenth time "I'm MT" he went in.

And I kept pulling aggro. OK, I can maybe accept that whilst we had equivalent gear, I probably had a higher aggregate gear level with more invested in threat stats, but even so, I don't struggle this much with Smart Casual's Warrior MT.

And what's worse he was sadly clueless. He kept tanking the boss in the Choking Cloud. But hell, he was MT, right?

Because I like a good audience request as much as the next narcissist...

Chefs Oliver and Otto asked me:

Ulu, could you possibly post up your thoughts on the epic tanking weapons and shields in WotLK sometime (if the topic is worthwhile)?

My main point of question is surrounding the Broken Promise as it is kind of slow, but on WoWhead they said this is no biggee for prot pallies these days. I was wondering if you agreed!

Anyhow I hope you are recovering well and I do enjoy visiting your blog. Thanks!

I'm afraid I don't have hands-on experience of Broken Promise since it drops in Naxx25 and I'm pretty much 10-mans only. That said, Ulu did a lot of his levelling and early heroics with the Crescent of Brooding Fury which is slower.

Paladin Tanking is pretty much weapon speed-agnostic. AFAIK, Warriors like a fast weapon because they want their swing time to be as close to the global cooldown of 1.5secs, so that their melee swings don't interfere with their other abilities too much.

With Paladins, the melee swing is a smaller part of our overall threat. There's two things you should look at when picking a weapon:

Weapon DPS: Hammer of the Righteous is the reason you're using a high-DPS one-hander in the first place. It doesn't care about the speed, only the overall DPS.

Secondary Stats: If you two weapons with the same DPS (ie: Red Sword of Courage and Slayer of the Lifeless), then pick whichever one has the more favorable stats. The Red Sword will help more with the Defense Cap, the Slayer has more avoidance.

And that's really all the mystery there is to tanking weapon choices. Pick the one with the highest DPS first, failing that pick the one with the more favorable stats, failing that, pick the one that looks coolest.

Here endeth the lesson.

#403

Oh my, I appear to have gone over 400 posts without realising it. Ah well, not like much of it matters. I could reminise about early victories in Zul'Gurrub or Molten Core to my readers but chances are either:

a) You did these encounters to death yourself or
b) They were something you went to as a tourist after The Burning Crusade was released.

Instead, I'll keep talking about what's happening here and now.

Ulushnar is something of a victim of my success. When I started Smart Casual I envisioned keeping the numbers small to minimize rotation in raids and shorten the length of time it takes us to master difficult fights.

In practical terms however, when you're one of three tanks in a guild with eighteen members, you get asked to do a lot of heroics. And if you were directly responsible for keeping the number of tanks in your guild low, it seems churlish to refuse.

That said, I'd like to help the last few guildies who haven't hit 80 get those last few levels. Since a lot of the guild has raced past them, it's hard for them to get groups to instances and they're falling further behind the rest of the group.

I can't please both groups, but I also recognise this will be a temporary situation. In a couple of months when we're ass-deep in Naxx and people have spent a ton of badges and are currently looking at their alts, the situation will be less desperate.

Guess I'll just have to balance my time better before then.

Protection DPS is no longer a joke!

Yesterday, Ulushnar broke a few milestones. He now has 25.3k health unbuffed(over 1.8k Stamina) and over 900 Strength, he also has over 2.1k Attack Power, and his damage is getting silly as a result.

Before the launch of Wrath, Ulu was lucky to end up in the top half of the DPS meters. In an AoE instance, he might just nudge ahead of a underperforming single-target DPSer. In Wrath now, Ulu can routinely nuke his way to the top of the DPS meters in AoE instances. Even in single-target fights, Ulu's Shield of Righteousness is a hefty chunk of DPS every 6 seconds, and Hammer of the Righteous continues to be consistantly awesome.

Of course he still goes oom in about 30 secs if he isn't getting hit, but you can't have everything, right?

Looking to the future.

Well, I've really neglected this thing, haven't I?

In truth, there isn't much to say. There's been nothing much happening in-game over the last week or two. We occasionally get a raid off the ground, but it's not the main thrust of what we're doing atm.

I'm getting bored with WoW because my time on Beta has made me realise the problems with Protection Paladins in their current state. I'm looking forward to the change in stats, I'm particularly looking forward to being able to stack Block Value without worrying about mana, and to wear tanking items without worrying about threat generation or uncrushability. Having seen what we'll become, the Protadin currently feels like a compromised beast. (I know by using the term "Protadin", I have incurred the nerdrage of a thousand Maintankadin posters. You can all kiss the fattest part of my ass!)

Which isn't to say we're perfect right now. In an article over at Tankspot, Lore's listed a few issues still prevailent in our class. For his part, Galoheart's asking "Do You Have Confidence Paladin Class Will Be Fixed?" [sic]

I have to say I do. Even if nothing changes between now and Wrath of the Lich King going live, then we'll still be in a better position than we were going into The Burning Crusade. The differences between us and certain other tanking classes are there, but they're nowhere near as pronounced as they were when the trailblazers like Lore and Invisusira were popularising the idea that we could actually tank 18 months ago.

Whilst we're at a slight disadvantage atm, which the Devs have promised will be looked at, it's a few % at best. That margin is only going to be of interest to the diehard min-maxers and Protadin (there I go again!) haters. If Wrath arrived tomorrow, there's nothing there that would stop me maintanking for Smart Casual all the way through Naxx and beyond.

I'm not worried, and I don't reccomend you should be either.

Are you prepared?

If there's one kind of thread that annoys me (well not exactly annoys, more disheartens me) it's the proliferation of "am I ready for ?" threads.

Maybe I've been blessed with indulgent (or tank-starved) friends in this game, but my "readiness" has never been a factor in my calculations.

My first level 70 instance with Ulushnar was tanking Warlord Kalithresh in Steamvaults at level 67. I was undergeared and succeptible to crushes from him, but dagnabbit, I went in there anyway. The week after that, I got the wind knocked out my sails when I tried Shadow Labyrinth at level 69, but I went back a few days later at 70 and totally killed him.

I was still crushable when I first entered Karazhan, and this was before the 2.3 stamina. I still had a ball and ended up outtanking the Warrior we had with us!

Any time I've had to face new content with Ulu, I've rarely asked anyone "am I ready for this?". I read the strats, dive in there, and if it all goes wrong, I then ask for advice on how I can improve.

And that's the best advice I can give anyone. Don't worry if you're ready to do something: try it and then find out. If it all goes to crap, then go and ask someone how to do better.Kalithresh

What bee's in your bonnet?

There seems to be, broadly speaking, three schools of thought where it comes to Paladin Gearing. At various points in Ulu's career, I've pursued them all.

Effective Health gearing is the most pervasive. These are the folks who will stick +Stamina gems and enchants everywhere they can. They also tend to aim for uncrushable by the cheapest method possible, so they quite often stack Block Rating, and look for extra mitigation via Block Value. For ten mans and the vast majority of 25-man bosses up to T5, this actually works great. There's rarely any bosses (save for the "big two" of Gruul and Magtheridon) that hit for more than 5k a hit and if your healers are on the ball, you're gonna be fine.

The problems with EH freaks are two-fold. First of all, there's a heavy reliance on non-spelldamage "warrior" gear. A few pieces is fine, but you need to be sure you're not threat-capping your DPS. Secondly, the lack of Avoidance means your healers are going to be constantly spamming high-rank heals to keep you up. In terms of raid set-up, you may want an extra healer to keep your massive health pool topped up, which can hurt the amount of DPS you bring to raids. Also on fights like Teron Gorefiend (or even Gruul in the later growths), it doesn't matter what your health and block value are like, 3 unavoided hits in a row will probably kill you.

Next we have Avoidance gearing. This is just taking things the other way and going for a crapload of +dodge itemization, with some parry where possible. In general Avoidance gearing is worth it for any fast-hitting mob, where over the course of the fight, you will see a decent reduction on your incoming damage.

The downside of focusing on Avoidance to the detriment of EH is that you will eventually have to take a hit. Avoidance is always just a chance to dodge/parry/be missed. Even if you somehow manage to squeeze out 70% avoidance, then sooner or later you'll get an unlucky hit streak, and you'll need to rely on your armor and health to take it. Also, and this is less of a concern, Avoidance tanks are going to find themselves the most mana-starved in farm content.

Finally we come to what is the current bee in my bonnet, Threat. CD has recently recruited a full T6 Bear tank and this has caused me to suddenly pay attention to my threat. I'm naturally a bit competitive and whilst the rational part of my brain accepts I'll never beat her, it doesn't mean I'm not going to damn-well try. So at the moment a few of my red gem slots are at home to Glowing Shadowsong Amethysts and I've recently started using my Illidari Runeshield as my main shield (it doesn't hurt that it has an enormous amount of armor to boot).

As a downside, my health's taken a bit of a nosedive to a stable 16.2k unbuffed, and I'm about 0.8% below uncrushable unbuffed (which is something I always advise against), but it seems to work fine in a raid environment. Although I'm already seeing the DPSers riding Ulu close on boss fights where we don't have many Hunters. I'm just going to have to keep pushing this envelope I guess.

So that's me, what bee's in your bonnet currently?

Is Uncrushable/Uncrittable necessary? - A Word to the Neophyte Tankadin...

Yes it bloody well is!

If you're farming the content, maybe you can afford to be a bit sloppy, but for progression stuff (and this is the stuff you're wanting gear checks for, right?) then you need to do everything you can to prevent any random burst damage.

That is always the first concern of a good tank. And you're here because you want to be a good tank, right?

I don't care if leaving you slightly below the crit cap gives you another 500 health, it won't save your ass if that 4k boss hit becomes an 8k boss crit. Passive uncrittability (that's 490 Defense for raid bosses, 485 for everyone else) is so pathetically easy to get it shouldn't even be a question.

Uncrushability can take a bit more work, but it's equally worth it. And it can be disheartening to see all those raiding tanks with 15k+ health whilst you're struggling to break 12k health. However, it's when you have 12k health and trying to tank Prince Malechazzar that you really, desperately need to make sure he doesn't drop a nasty crush on your head.

If you just wanna have a massive health pool that looks impressive when people invite you to PuGs then ignore me. No, seriously, ignore me, ignore the rest of the voices that chant "490, 102.4%" like it's a mantra designed to bring forth some horrid, world-ending god. (and who knows, maybe it is.)

You are a precious and unique snowflake and you will do things your own way. In fact, who the hell do we think we are coming on here and telling you how to be an effective tank?

Look before you post

Well, I answered the a few posts in the Gear Check/Advice thread over at Maintankadin until the bile rose in my throat and a red mist descended over my eyes.

In the year I've been reading Maintankadin, the knowledge base has increased remarkably, with guides on gear progression, uncrushability and even gems and enchantments. Almost every silly, needy question has been answered there and the one that hasn't; "what level of gear do I need to tank x" has been answered over at Tankspot. These guides will answer 90% of the questions people seem to ask, with the rest being generic "rate my gear" threads which whilst banal are kinda acceptable.

Perhaps it's just me, but if I'm looking for information on uncrushability, I would immediately head for the big thread marked "Uncrushability Guide" rather than write a post saying "hay guyz, how iz I crushed?".

I suppose I shouldn't be too harsh. I can remember the bleak days before I discovered Maintankadin, and I was as lost and dazed as any of them when I first joined up. There is a lot of information to be assimilated and not everyone has the inclination to do so. Also, since most guilds and raidgroups will only have one or two Tankadins in them, it's hard to turn to someone in-game for informed advice or reassurance.

That said, it would be nice if people who see someone with the same problem as them would just read how they solved it, or comment there, rather than just throw out an extremely open-ended "rate my gear" thread. Specifics are your friends.

Three days, three different shoulders.

Well three weeks into the hacking mess, still no sign of Ulu's gear. On the plus side, with the exception of his Bracers, I've managed to build a halfway decent set of gear for him now.

On Friday, Ulu came and helped Off-tank a Void Reaver/Solarian run in Tempest Keep. After that was cleared, Ulu went and tanked a couple of Heroics. First up was Magister's Terrace, where Ulu was finally able to get his hands on a Commendation of Kael'thas! After that it was off to Sethekk Halls heroic where Ikiss kindly dropped the Spaulders of Dementia, giving Ulu a set of shoulders with actual tanking stats on them.

After that, Ulu had enough badges to buy a new Gnomeregan Auto-Blocker. However, I decided not to bother replacing any more of my old items and decided to keep saving for the new ones.

The new shoulders lasted him all of about 12 hours before an afternoon Gruul/Magtheridon farm gave him a new set of Justicar Shoulderguards. After that it was off to Karazhan, where Ulu got a new cloak and had enough badges for the new ring. After some humming and hawing, I decided to save badges for the new badge legs instead.

Sunday saw Ulu in Zul'Aman with some bored folks where the first chest provided him with the Pauldrons of Stone Resolve. At the moment, I'm still relying on the Tier 4 shoulders for the most part, but the Za shoulders will be useful for my block set when I get Ulu's gear back. As it stands, I'm just glad to be able to raid and do Heroics with Ulu again.