Every single boss I list here is completely solo-able without any major hardships. There is no reason you can't just DPS and burn down each one of these:

• High Priest Venoxis (snake boss)
  
• High Priestess Mar'li (spider boss)
• High Priestess Arlokk (panther boss)
  
• Jin'Do the Hexxer

Venoxis and Jin'Do both have a set of adds immediately in front of them, so they will have to be cleared. Mar'li and Arlokk have no mobs in their immediate area, and therefore can be run to and killed without engaging any other enemies.

• Gahz'ranka can be killed easily as well, but requires a Mudsunk Lure to fish him out of the water. I don't have the lures, therefore I do no kill him on my ZG runs. The Tome of Polymorph: Turtle he drops sells very well on the AH still, though.
• I also skip the Edge ofMadness event. Not even going there.

For buffs on the bosses I use Retribution Aura, Seal of Command, and Blessing of Might. If for any reason health starts dipping low, Seal of Light can be used.

Dead and Looted:


Khor

Posted this in the WoW suggestions forum:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=18031098524&sid=1

I am sure I'll get flamed, but here's the actual post:

The logic behind giving Exorcism a cast time is there, or at least on the surface. I agree it needs to be included in PvP, with some sort of 'penalty', or else the up front burst damage could be brutal if left as instant cast. Giving it a 1.5 second cast time with the chance to instant cast off Art of War seems like an even trade off. Having to stand still to cast the spell will neutralize the Paladin just a smidge to take off the edge we seem to have.

Now, in PvE, especially in raiding, I am not quite convinced the mechanics need to change from instant cast. Yes, we get the upfront burst damage, but Exorcism is our least damaging spell in the long run. Every single recount or damage meter for any decent raiding Paladin will have Exorcism as dead last, and trailing quite a bit behind all the other damaging spells and abilities.

With the new Seal of Vengeance being the heavy hitter and seal of choice for raiding, along with its judging counterpart, I can see where the tradeoff may or may not be beneficial to our 'rotations', but I don't see Exorcism as instant cast being a huge DPS booster. Not enough to justify giving it a cast time. Art of War, again, gives us the option of an instant cast by choosing between it and Flash of Light, but to me that is negated by the fact that we are using it far less in the 3.2 changes. Maybe that's the intention, and if so, I disagree with the logic behind the decision, as I think it should still be an integral (albeit small) part of our DPS.

In PvP let it have its cast time, I totally agree with that. But in PvE, let it remain instant cast.

AoE Leveling / Grinding

If your looking for a good class to AoE level with, the Paladin is my hands down choice. I realize Mages are good, and Warlocks are great at higher levels, but what the Paladin brings with high AoE effectiveness is survivabilty as well as very little down time.

From the get-go, a Ret Pally with his or her trusty 2H can solo 3-5 mobs at once, and it only gets easier as more abilities unlock as you level. Once Divine Storm is obtained, it's pretty much ridiculous at how fast you can blow through packs of mobs.

For me, at level 18-19 I was grinding the gnolls to the south of Westfall in the camps 6 or 7 at a time. Given, I had a decent weapon and gear, but nothing outrageous. I hit 20 easily in under an hour.

Every quest I had, I would drag mobs with me and burn them down once I had tagged four or five.

With the 10% experience gain from the bind on account shoulders, and the upcoming chest piece that stacks 10% more for a total of 120% xp gain, watch the levels fly by.

Crusader Aura

Increases mounted speed by 20%.

I don't know about you, but an increase to mounted speed by 20%, which is what I am traveling by 75% in-game, is huge. I'm not sure people realize how much of a time-saver this really is.

At level 63, we can purchase this, and with larger areas to cover in BC and WotLK content, it's a must-have.

Try this on for size. Let's say you spend 5 hours of played time on your mount at levels 63-80, without the aura. With the aura, you knock out 1 whole hour, reducing time to 4 hours. That's 1 hour saved by using the aura. For me, I actually probably am on longer than 5 hours, but it's a nice round number.

I will probably add more posts because there is so much gold to be had disenchanting, but here is a quick little way I have found to make an extra hundred gold or two. I have been playing with this exact method for about a week, and I'm not really sure why I haven't done this sooner, as I have used similar methods in the past that have been highly profitable.

This is easy and quick:

• Do an auction house search for gear level 75 to 80
• Scroll past the epic and rare gear and get to the green gear
• Purchase any gear that has a buyout of 10g or less
• DE the gear

Here is exactly what you can get with the approximate sell value of the DE'd dusts/essences assuming a buyout of exactly 10g:

• 1x Dream Shard (15g, 5g profit)
• 2x Greater Cosmic Essence (20g, 10g profit)
• 1x Greater Cosmic Essence (10g, 0g profit)
• 5x Infinite Dust (20g, 10g profit)
• 4x Infinite Dust (16g, 6g profit)
• 3x Infinite Dust (12g, 2g profit)
• 2x Infinite Dust (8g, -2g profit)

Now, this is obviously a game of chance, so play at your own risk. Sometimes you get Infinite Dust x2 several DE's in a row. And sometimes you will get 5x Infinite Dust several times in a row. It's all a matter of how the dice roll.

Often, I will find about half of what I buy at less than 10g, and sometimes I will even bid on items close to their auction end times that are under 10g as well.

Here is how I fared just last night:

• 8 items bought
• 5 bought at 10g
• 1 bought at 9.5g
• 1 bought at 9.33g
• 1 bought for 7.35g

The 5 bought at 10g DE'd into:

1. 5x Infinite Dust (20g)
2. 2x Infinite Dust (8g)
3. 2x Infinite Dust (8g)
4. 2x Greater Cosmic Essence (20g)
5. 3x Infinte Dust (12g)

Profit: 68g - 50g = 18g

The other three DE'd into:

1. 9.5g gear -> 4x Infinite Dust (16g)
2. 9.33g gear -> 3x Infinite Dust (12g)
3. 7.35g gear -> 5x Infinte Dust (20g)

Profit: 48g - 26.18g = 21.82g

Total profit for the 8 pieces of gear I bought and DE'd comes out to 39.82g if it all sells. Since I am at work, I'll have to see when I get home, but I'm fairly positive I'll have all that gold sitting in my mailbox.

Total time invested: 4 minutes

There are several small ways to make gold with Tailoring, and two very large ones: Bags and Threads. I am going to focus on bags here, because that's what I focus on.

I make two types of bags, and it amazes me how many people are buying these things!

1) Netherweave Bags
2) Imbued Netherweave Bags

Here is the breakdown for each particular bag:

Netherweave Bag

Mats: Bolt of Netherweave x4 (20x Netherweave Cloth) and Rune Thread x1

Purchase Netherweave at 3g or under per stack of 20. Rune Thread 12.5s per at vendors.

Cost: 3.12g maximum
Sell: 7.5g on average
Profit: 4.38g per bag

Most of the time, I buy these in bulk off the AH, and wind up with anywhere from 10 to 25 bags made. About 90% of the time I can sell them all within the first 24 hours, as I undercut the lowest current bag price.

At 4.38g profit per bag, if I sell 10 bags that's 43.8g profit. If I can sell as many as 25 bags, that's 109.5g profit!

Usually I get bags up each night, or at least every other night, depending on the AH prices. Let's just be safe and say 3 nights per week, at 43.8g - 109.5g profit each night comes to 131.4g - 328.5g profit per week!

This has the chance to be even more, if the price of Netherweave is low, or if the bags can sell for more than 7.5g.

Imbued Netherweave Bag

This one is a bit tricky, and I'm showing how I make money based on the fact that I have a plethora of Greater Planar Essence from DE'ing green gear I loot from soloing BC instances. A regular BC solo run killing most everything in the instance takes about 30 minutes and nets me anywhere from 6 to 10 greens. I'll make 3 or 4 BC runs a week.

Mats: Bolt of Imbued Netherweave x4, Netherweb Spider Silk x2, and Greater Planar Essence x1

Purchase Bolt of Imbued Netherweave at 4g or under per bolt. Netherweb Spider Silk at 8g or under per.

*Note: For me it proves easier to buy the bolt instead of the mats to make them. Often people leveling up tailoring are dumping their extra bolts, and that's where I swoop in and take them off their hands. Oftentimes I see bolts up in full stacks of 20 for 2.5g/per or less. For the sake of showing the potential of profits, I'm using a maximum of 4g per.

Cost: 32g maximum
Sell: 45g on average
Profit: 13g per bag

I can sell about 20 to 30 of these per week on average, netting me a profit of 260g - 390g profit.

Now, let's say I get the mats for much cheaper than my maximum numbers, which I very often do...let's assume 2.5g per bolt and 4g per netherweb silk. Again, I already have the essences. These numbers are more accurate to what I actually pull in based on my server's economy.

Cost: 18g
Sell: 45g on average
Profit: 27g per bag!

That puts potential profits at 540g - 810g!

If you put profits for both Netherweave Bags and Imbued Netherweave Bags together, that gives me and average income of 391.4g - 718.5g per week on a reserved estimate, and as much as 671.4g - 1138.5g if I get the most bang for my buck! Not bad income for just selling bags. Again, the market fluctuates, so sometimes I am at the lower end of the scale, while others I am at the peak. Either way, income is income, and I never have to leave the AH!

Khor

Council, Kologarn, Auriaya, and Hodir all went down. Lack of time prevented us from moving on further, though we did throw a couple unsuccessful 23-man attempts at Thorim. This time around, yours truly got one piece of gear...a healing helm. That puts my 25-man totals to 2 pieces of ret gear, and 5 pieces of healing gear! Whugh! The 2 ret pieces are a cloak and a ring...while the healy items are all plate. Need me some better plate DPS gear. That and another weapon to replace my crappy Armageddon. At 25-man Ulduar level, I should really be above that. WTB more 10-man Ulduar runs, at least.

Hodir still gave us fits. I died several times from icicles and the like. My frustration was building as I died twice from lack of heals very early on, we're talking first minute or so deaths. One of the times I was smashed mid-Holy Light. I love our healers and they do a great job on a very consistent basis, but we had a Pally healer DC'ing throughout the encounter which I believe was what hurt us the most.

The other part was a lack of DPS, as you can see from the WWS numbers I linked below. Getting knocked around so often, I struggle to find the beams to jump into, but I get there as much as I can. However, by looking at the numbers, I can see we still have some issues regarding DPS on that fight. We are too close on the enrage timer, and it's showing me that it's very hard for some people to get to the beams. Ah well, it's a tough encounter. Probably this and Thorim are my least favorites.

Anyways, guild run tomorrow, but yet again I will miss it because of work. Raiding 2 out of 3 days a week isn't bad for me.

My DPS was much better this week, and here are the logs to show: WWS

I still need more gear upgrades to boost that number. I feel I could really put up some high numbers when my gear gets better.

Still hoping next week we can knock out a few more bosses the first day, allowing for additional attempts on other bosses on Thursday.

I know lots of Paladins that have taken jewelcrafting as their profession, as the gem bonuses offer a nice little DPS boost. I, as a blacksmith and miner, am not privileged to these nice little perks, but my mage is. I took up JC with her to be able to cut my own gems, and to make a little gold on the side. Only I didn't make a little gold, I made ALOT of gold. Over the past week, I had gone from around 24k gold to 34k gold. This is a combo of all my AH toons and incomes (including dailies), but a good chunk of it has come from JC.

I buy anywhere from 10 to 40 stacks of Saronite Ore at less than or equal to 17g/stack. I then prospect each and everyone of them, with intention to sell the rare gems and make necks or rings to DE and sell the mats...here is what I do (values are approximate):

• Sell Scarlet Ruby (70g), Twilight Opal (10g), Forest Emerald (7g), Autumn's Glow (15g), Monarch Topaz (12g), and Sky Sapphire (5g).
• Make the following jewelry: Bloodstone Band, Crystal Chalcedony Amulet, Crystal Citrine Necklace, Sun Rock Ring. (Each requires 2x Crystallized Earth in adition to the one gem)
• DE the jewelery and sell Infinite Dust (4g/each), Greater Cosmic Essence (10g/each), and Small Dream Shard (6g/per).
• Store the Dark Jade and Shadow Crystal for future use as they currently do not make me much money. If I get a large amount, I may just sell the stack(s) for the vendor 5g/stack.

Here is my last recount:

• Buy 27 stacks Saronite Ore(15g x 10 stacks, 17g x 17 stacks = 439g)
• Buy 14 Eternal Earth (6g x 14 = 84g) (Broken down to 10x Crystallized Earth each)
• Total spent = 523g

Here is what I got from the prospecting:

• 5x Scarlet Ruby
• 6x Monarch Topaz
• 5x Sky Sapphire
• 7x Forest Emerald
• 5x Autmun's Glow
• 5x Twilight Opal
• 22x Chalcedony
• 21x Huge Citrine
• 19x Bloodstone
• 17x Sun Crystal

Jewelry disenchanted into:

• 84x Infinite Dust
• 9x Greater Cosmic Essence
• 1x Small Dream Shard

After making the jewelry and disenchanting, here is what I sold (and it all sold by the 48 hour mark):

• Scarlet Ruby (65g) x5 = 325g
• Monarch Topaz (12g) x 6 = 72g
• Sky Sapphire (4.5g) x 5 = 22.5g
• Forest Emerald (5.5g) x 7 = 38.5g
• Autumn's Glow (15g) x5 = 75g
• Twilight Opal (11g) x 5 = 55g
• Infinite Dust (4g) x 84 = 336g
• Greater Cosmic Essence (9.5g) x 9 = 85.5g

All this for a grand total of 1009.5g. That's a profit of 486.5g for about 20 minutes of work! I have done this each night for the past 8 days. My totals of profit were as follows:

• Monday - 20 stacks of ore, 343.5g profit
• Tuesday - 35 stacks of ore, 732g profit (lots of Scarlet Rubies this batch)
• Wednesday - 18 stacks of ore, 194g profit
• Thursday - 50 stacks of ore, 1186g profit
• Friday - 40 stacks of ore, 910.5g profit
• Saturday - 35 stacks of ore, 695g profit
• Sunday - 22 stacks of ore, 407g profit
• Monday - 27 stacks of ore, 486.5g profit

Grand total over 8 days: 4954.5g! Let's just round that off and say 5000g! Not too shabby. Alot of this depends on luck, mainly getting Scarlet Rubies and Infinite Dust/Lesser Cosmic Essence x2 procs...but there is money to be made!

I know I could probably cut the gems and sell them for more, but I have found that selling the raw gem by itself has a much higher turnover rate (people buying to cut themselves because it's cheaper, people leveling JC, and people buying raw gems to cut and sell for profit).

I know there are other facets to making gold with jewelcrafting, but this is my way, and so far, with the WoW economy prices as they are, it's working!

Khor

Here is one thing I have figured out about World of Warcraft...I love leveling. Call me crazy, but something about the 1-80 grind is fun for me. Here is my chronological order of leveling toons and their outcomes:

• Khorio - Level 63 Human Paladin (deleted)
• Merican - Level 61 Human Warlock (deleted)
• Greenleaf - Level 60 Night Elf Druid (deleted)
• Khorana - Level 80 Gnome Rogue (Alt)
• Khoala - Level 71 Gnome Mage (Alt, AH toon)
• Khor - Level 70 Gnome Warrior (deleted)
• Khorio - Level 66 Dwarf Paladin (deleted)
• Khorbin - Level 70 Dwarf Hunter (deleted)
• Khorio - Level 70 Gnome Warlock (deleted)
• Rhori - Level 29 Gnome Mage, twink (deleted)
• Rhocki - Level 29 Dwarf Hunter, twink (deleted)
• Khore - Level 61 Gnome Death Knight (deleted)
• Khor - Level 80 Human Paladin (Main)
• Khorbin - Level 40 Dwarf Hunter (currently leveling)

That puts me at 10 toons to lvl 60, 5 toons to 70, and 2 to 80. The plethora of deletions were attempts to cut back on playtime, as well as boredom with the toon for this reason or that. Needless to say, I've leveled a time or two.

What I have figured out is that I like fast paced leveling, and toons that can blow through content. Paladins, Hunters, and Mages top my list...Druids, Priests, and Shaman are at the bottom (I have dabbled in leveling every type of class, but nothing above 60 I listed unless it was a twink).

So, now to my decision to level ret. It wasn't really a hard decision for me...more DPS as ret, which is faster the way I level. I am a firm believer in quest stacking, and a pure hater of mob grinding. However, I fully realize the potential for mob XP while questing, so for every quest, I kill anything and everything that so much as looks at me. This combo is the fastest way to level. I could consistently pull three to five mobs at a time, judging light with retribution aura up, seal of command and consecration blasting away, and I just would keep moving from pack to pack with little to no downtime.

Leveling both ret and prot offer AoE grindage, but ret does it faster, much faster. With the nerf to Blessing of Sanctuary awhile back, protection leveling lost a little ground. It is still viable, but one hand DPS is two to three times slower than its two-handed DPS counterpart. Mana was a small issue at first, but as soon as I could activate Judgements of the Wise, it became a non-factor. I leveled to 80 in record time (for myself) with almost no rested XP.

Once you gain access to Art of War and Divine Storm, it's almost unfair. Level 60 to 80 was a breeze. I rarely died, and was able to quickly and easily solo 99% of the group quests I came upon. Soloing group quests saves so much time, as you're not LFG and not skipping content, which usually yields higher XP rewards. Now don't get me wrong, protection is just as viable in terms of soloing content, but it just doesn't hold the DPS burst or output that ret can.

Bottom line is that leveling retribution is ridiculously fast, and for someone like myself who has little patience at times, it's the best way to go.

Khor

PS I will do more in-depth looks at leveling ret as this blog progresses, but this just kicks everything off as my general view on the topic.

Last night I was really psyched up about our raid. I was for sure we were going to push through everything fast! We burned through FL and left one tower up...2 badges hard mode. The Razorscale was up next...and my baby (supposed to be sleeping) woke up screaming. My night of raiding turned into a night of consoling my littile one. Absolutely hands down an easy decision to make, but raid nights are my only true "free time" nights. Wife was at a cooking co-op making us a bunch of dinners for the next couple week, so Dad to the rescue!

I ended up halfway participating in our Razorscale kill, and had to bail out after that. And guess what Ignis dropped about 10 minutes later? MY AXE! Grrrrr...

I felt bad for having to leave, but it turns out we had a couple more no-shows and a strange lack of healers, so after clearing the forge area, RCC called it for the night. Thursday should be much better.

This week we did not quite make it as far as the last. Maybe we weren't quite on our game, but Hodir gave us heaps of trouble. We got everything up to and including Hodir, leaving Mimiron, Thorim, and Freya still up. I won't be going tonight to finish the run, but they should tackle the rest, and hopefully get General down as well. Good luck guys!

My focus this time was to not die as much as last time, and try to improve my sustained DPS on the bosses. I failed at the first, and succeeded at the other.

We managed a one tower hard mode on FL with relative ease, and proceeded to knock out the next 3 bosses quickly. Razorscale dropped me this pretty cloak, Drape of the Drakerider. Major upgrade from Cloak of Bloodied Waters.

Kologarn and Auriaya went down easy, and thus ended Tuesday's raid. I came in 5th on DPS, floating between 5th and 6th all night. I think what is separating me from the top 4 or 5 is my gear. I don't think I'll hit top 3, as our top 3 DPS are two rogues and a kitty druid. They're hitting 5k+ dps with ease, and I was right around 4k or so, maybe a little more. Didn't have a WWS posted this week, so I have forgotten the actual numbers

So, Thursdays raid left us to start with Hodir, which we attmepted about 7 times, getting wipe after wipe for stupid reasons. I got caught in the flash freeze several times, though I was following the fight as precisely as I could. I was actualyl getting frozen in the middle of the safe area, so maybe I was lagging, I don't know. Regardless, we decided to go after the council and one-shotted that one.

At that point, we either had to choose Freya, Thorim, or Hodir (again). None of us were up for the trash on Freya, so we opted for Hodir one more time, and even were short a person this time around. One shot, one kill. Maybe Hodir was demoralized from the council getting decimated, but we knocked 2 full minutes off our record kill. 8 minutes last week and 6 minutes this week. Far from the 3 minute kill for hard mode, but a huge success considering our bountiful wipes earlier in the night. We gave Thorim two attempts before calling it.

When it was all over, I actually ended up with 3 pieces of loot, though only the cloak was DPS. The other two were pants and boots for my healing off-set.

This week I am hoping we can increase the pace a bit (not that we need to), just to challenge ourselves and see if maybe we can knock out one more boss the first night.

Khor

I just did some basic math and it looks like Seal of Vengeance will be the seal of choice for ret pallies. This, just from my quick numbers, is a significant boost from Martyr, so we'll so how it works out.

The Crusader Strike at 75% weapon damage every 4 seconds comapared to 110% ever 6 seconds comes out to a smidge more damage, but that's not counting crits. I'm not sure what it will look like with crits involved. If you hit CS exactly every cooldown, we would be getting 15 CS as opposed to 10 every 60 seconds.

OLD: 2400 weapon dmg * 1.1 = 2640 * 10 = 26400 dmg/min
NEW: 2400 weapon dmg * 0.75 = 1800 * 15 = 27000 dmg/min

This math leaves alot of loopholes, not counting crits, and assumes hit and exp cap, etc. but you get the idea.

Exorcism having a 1.5 second cast time is putrid in my opinion, but that's the price to pay to use in PvP I guess. Art of War gives the option to have it instant cast, so I doubt many ret pallies will be using their Flash of Light, opting to Exorcism instead. However, we shouldn't be needing the FoL as often due to the self-damage from Martyr being completely removed.

Art of War also now only procs off melee critical hits. I'm assuming this still includes DS and CS.

Judgements are out, and that hurts. I'm not much of a PTR person, so I'll be waiting for EJ and others to post their findings, but I am eager to see how this plays out.

I'm still thinking we'll be hurting for the burst damage. Some fights, like Yoggs phase 2, need the quick burst damage, or so I hear, so I';m curious to see if they don't make some change to give it back some oomph before release.

More to come, it's still too early to declare this a pass or fail.

Khor

Paladins

• Blessing of Sanctuary: This blessing now also increases stamina by 10%. This effect is not cumulative with Blessing of Kings.
• Charger: Can now be learned at level 40.
• Crusader Aura: This ability now also grants its flying speed increase to a druid’s Flight Form and Swift Flight Form.
• Exorcism: Now has a 1.5 second cast time, but can once again be used on players.
  Hand of Reckoning: Redesigned. Now does damage only when the target does not currently have the caster targeted, but damage done increased to 50% of attack power, occurring after the taunt effect is applied.
• Judgements: Some of these attacks were considered ranged and some melee. They are all now considered melee attacks that can’t be dodged, parried or blocked.
• Judgement of Light: Now heals for 2% of the attacker's maximum health instead of a variable amount based on the spell power and attack power of the judging paladin.
• Lay on Hands: The buff from this ability now reduces the physical damage taken by the target by 10/20% instead of increasing the target's armor.
• Righteous Fury: No longer has a duration, remaining until cancelled or death. Also cancelled when a Paladin activates a different talent specialization.
• Sacred Shield: When a paladin casts Flash of Light on a target with this buff, they also now place a heal-over-time effect on the target, healing that target for 100% of the Flash of Light amount over 12 seconds.
• Seal of Blood: This ability has been removed.
• Seal of the Martyr: This ability has been removed.
• Seal of Vengeance and Seal of Corruption: These seals have been redesigned to deal substantially more damage. Now, once a paladin has 5 copies of the debuff from these seals on his or her target, on each swing the paladin will deal 33% weapon damage as Holy, with critical strikes dealing double damage. In addition, the damage-over-time effect is now considered a melee attack instead of a spell attack and the effects from these seals can only be triggered by auto-attacks and Hammer of the Righteous.
• Shield of Righteousness: Now deals 100% of shield block value as damage instead of 130%. In addition, the benefit from additional block value this ability gains is now subject to diminishing returns. Diminishing returns occur once block value exceeds 30 times the player's level and caps the maximum damage benefit from shield block value at 34.5 times the player's level.
• Warhorse: Can now be learned at level 20.

Talents

Holy

• Beacon of Light: The healing amount on the Beacon of Light target is now based on the total healing done (including over-healing) instead of the effective healing done. Radius increased to 60 yards. Multiple Paladins can now have this active on the same target. Buff indicating a player is within range of the Beacon target is no longer displayed.
• Divine Intellect: This talent now gives 2/4/6/8/10% increased intellect instead of 3/6/9/12/15%.
• Illumination: This talent now returns 30% of the mana cost of the spell instead of 60%.
  Protection
• Ardent Defender: Redesigned. Any damage that takes the paladin below 35% health is reduced. This reduction applies only to the portion that pushes the paladin below 35% health (example: a paladin at 50% health takes a 40% hit; the first 15% hits as normal while the next 25% is reduced). In addition, once every 2 minutes an attack that would have killed the paladin will fail to kill, and instead heal the paladin for up to 10/20/30% of maximum health depending on the paladin’s defense rating (example: a paladin with defense equal to only 5 times his or her level will receive no healing from the talent, while a paladin who is immune to critical strikes from boss creatures through defense will receive the maximum amount).
• Guarded by the Light: This talent will no longer cause Divine Plea’s duration to be refreshed by using Judgement of Wisdom, Judgement of Justice, or Judgement of Light.

Retribution

• Art of War: Now only applies to melee critical hits, but will make your next Flash of Light or Exorcism instant. In addition, this talent now provides notification in the floating combat text when it activates.
• Crusader Strike: Damage reduced to 75% weapon damage to match the new 4-second cooldown. Mana cost reduced to 5% of base mana.
• Seal of Command: Redesigned. This seal now deals 36% weapon damage on every swing, and deals substantially less judgement damage.
• Vindication: Redesigned. Now lowers target attack power, is consistent and does not stack with Demoralizing Shout.

Soloing Hakkar is simple as a retribution paladin. First, let me start by saying that I kill 4 out of the 5 priests. Tiger, Panther, Snake, and Spider bosses are all easily solo-able. The fifth boss, the 'bat boss', if you will, is difficult for me because I cannot interrupt her heals. Without any form of mana drain, I just don't consider this do-able as ret.

By leaving the bat boss up only, Hakkar has a nice little silencing ability, but that's very insignificant. Everything he throws at me is so minor in damage that I just let seal of light, divine storm and judging of light do my dirty work.

When approaching Hakkar, it is not necessary to kill any of the mobs. You can easily avoid the pats, and all I do is run straight up to the top where he is waiting and I charge right at him, turning him around so that my back is to the small structure behind him. None of the mobs will aggro while fighting him.

Buffs are as follows: Seal of Light, Blessing of Might, Retribution Aura, Judgement: Light.
FCFS rotation applies, with Consecrate as optional. I tend not to use it to keep mana high.

This is really just a DPS race, and as ret I have no problems. Hitting Avenging Wrath as soon as I engage, he usually only gets four phases of his siphon life in before he is dead. All of his abilities are non-factors here, and the siphon life is negligible. Because there is only one target to drain life from, his HP barely goes back up.

I wish this could be more detailed, but like Onyxia, this is an extremely easy fight. Just stay put in your spot at the top of the platform and he'll be down in minutes.


Khor

This is still current as of 3.2.

Everytime I enter a raid, I want to come in as prepared as possible. I bring flasks, potions, stat food, mana food, scrolls, and off-set gear. I only bring what is considered BiS, and I make sure I have enough to last the whole raid. My philosophy is if you aren't contributing to the success of the raid, you shouldn't be in it. Now, that aside, that doesn't mean you can't have all kinds of fun. Raiding should be enjoyable and entertaining, allowing you to push your skill, but never becoming too involved where it becomes a task or chore, or feels like a job.

I like to get my raid mats for the whole week, usually farming for an hour or so early Monday morning. I take my rogue out and farm until I get 3 or 4 frost lotus and then proceed to get a guildie to make some flasks. Then I switch over to Khor and fish up about 20 to 30 Dragonfin Angelfish. My AH toon purchases a few potions I need, and voila! I'm set for the week's raids.

Here is what I make sure to have for each raid:

• 5x Flask of Endless Rage
• 5x Flask of the Frost Wyrm (In case I am needed to go off-spec)
• 20x Dragonfin Filet
• 20x Firecracker Salmon
• 40x Mana food
• 10x Runic Mana Potion
• 10x Runic Healing Potion
• 10x Haste Potion
• 5x Scroll of Agility/Intellect
• 10-20x Fish Feast
• 300x Symbol of Kings (doesn't hurt to have too many)
• Off-set healing gear

I always like to keep a full stock of healing stat food and flasks just in case I need to switch specs for a particular fight, or even a whole raid. These I don't have to replace very often because I usually don't have to perform healing duties unless I am in a heroic 5-man.

I also do not have to replace my mana and healing potions very often, as I don't use them during raids much. More often than not I am using haste potions, thus using up my potion for the fight. But it is nice to have them there just in case.

The haste potions and endless rage flasks are usually half gone for one night's raiding. I only burn the haste pots on bosses during a Shaman Heroism or my own Avenging Wrath. I usually have more than 5 flasks to start with, as the guildies who make them for me usually proc extras, so I don't have to make any more for the rest of the week. If for any reason I find myself without either of these two items right before a raid, I'll run to the AH and drop some gold to get myself caught up.

I have just recently started carrying extra Fish Feasts for my guild, but many others are carrying them as well. Mine are made by guild bank donations, so if I am able, I will try to lay down my feasts first.

The scrolls are semi-helpful, and don't give a huge boost, but if they are cheap enough in the AH I'll keep several on hand. Depending on my buffs, these may or may not be usable. If I have arcane brilliance, the scroll of intellect won't stack. Ideally, I would have strength scrolls, but the Dragonfin Filet (+40 str/+40 stam) overrides that.

Finally, the Dragonfin Filets are the BiS food item for Ret Paladins who have their strength buff. This puts out a small amount of increased dps over the fish feast, so I make sure and keep a full stock.

Just remember when joining a raid it is common courtesy to bring your own mats. This is my list of what I bring, and I will adjust this as needed in the future.

Khor

This past Thursday, RCC took down Mimiron! Our raid leaders did an excellent job of calling everything out, so much thanks to them for keeping us aware! My concern on this fight, as I had done it once in 10-man, was to stay alive. Phase 4 is usually what gets me, and I think I need to self-heal a little more often during that chaotic part of the fight.

We started of on our first attempt and got to phase 3 with a handful of peeps alive. Yours truly died somewhere in the second phase. I am not sure what hit me, but my instincts tell me I nudged just a smidge too far forwards and got blasted by one of the laser beams. I'm not really sure if that was it, but it was one blow and I was dead. I proceeded to watch the rest of my guild get dropped one by one, with the add tank being the last one alive (I think). Reminded me of Davy Crockett and the Alamo for whatever reason.

Anyways, we came back for attempt number two and burned through phase one. I scroll all the way out on my screen so I can see the mines, and made it out of them easy for each blast. I hate running out because it wastes precious dps time, but hey, at least I'm alive.

Phase two came and I really kept my distance, keeping pace as the middle section turned and spewed hell into our casters and healers. No lasers to the back of the head this time. This phase also went quick and phase three came fast.

Our warlock tank, Kikirt, did a great job as usual tanking the head O.o, and that phase rocked too. DPS'ing the adds is no big deal really, and we burned through the head every time it came down. It's still alot of running around, which of course I hate due to dps loss, but we got through this unscathed. Best part...I was still alive.

Phase four comes on and I am deisignated to dps the bottom section. I think we had one or two people down at this point. As we hit phase four, I was keeping up with the mines, lasers, and blasts pretty well. But as the boss started moving around it became more difficult, and after 3 successful blast evasions, the fourth one got me. I fell, and noticed half the raid was gone too. When I am button mashing my FCFS, it's hard to watch everything on the screen as I am trying to hit all my abilities as they come up, plus watch my DBM for blasts and mines, and then run out.

Regardless, the remaining DPS (I think I saw one tank and two or three melee left, the rest were ranged) focused on each part as needed, and as more guildies dropped I was thinking we were going to lose it at around 4% or so. But the healers did an amazing job and kept everyone up, allowing the few surviving DPS to burn through the rest of the fight, and we got our Mimiron kill! No loot for the pallies this time around, but the fight was fun as hell.

Khor

I am obsessed with making gold. There, I said it. When TBC hit, I had almost 8000g saved up, more than enough for my epic flying mount when I hit 80. That was alot back then! When WotLK hit, I had over 60,000g saved up. So now, who knows how much I could have by next expansion?

Sadly though, I am more or less starting from the ground up, because here was my spending spree:

Paladin leveled 1-80 in March 2009:
500g Epic Mount
6000g Epic Flying
1000g Cold Weather Flying
8000g Kirin Tor Ring and Upgrade
1000g Ice Mammoth from SoH
4200g Nobles Deck
1000g Dual spec
~2000g Gear upgrades/Profession leveling @80
Total: 22,800g

Rogue leveled 70-80 on WotLK release:
600g Bear Mount in Dalaran
20,000g Traveler's Mammoth
1000g Cold Weather Flying
~4000g Gear upgrades (they were alot more expensive at release than now)
1000g dual spec
8000g Kirin Tor Ring and Upgrade
Total: 34,600g

Total gold spent: 57,400g

WHUGH!

Now, I have caught back up and my total as of today is...let's just say I am a little more than a 1/3 of the way caught back up. More than adequate padding, but at the inflation rate I am sure we will see, I still have a ways to go.

So how does this ret pally make gold? Well, actually most of my gold is made on my AH toons. I have 3...the Rogue is in the bank DE'ing for profit, the mage is a tailor/DE'er an is providing the Shadowsong Realm with baggage, and my little lvl 7 AH toon is buying and re-selling like there was no tomorrow. On a good day I can bring in about 500g per day across all three, but more often than not it's only about 100-200g per day.

Here is where my pally makes up the difference. I have 3 main ways of making money on this toon.

1) I am NOT a gatherer for gold on this toon. I mine and blacksmith. I mine everything I see, but I end up crafting gear and DE'ing it for enchanting mats. Example: Horned Cobalt Helm requires 8 cobalt bars and DE's into 2-5 dust. More gold made on the enchanting mats than the bars. The saronite I use to make gear (usually the level 76 rares) and DE into shards, which have recently jumped in price due to Ulduar bringing a slew of new gear to enchant. So the shards end up bringing in more gold than the saronite (don't forget no deposit on enchanting mats, wheres ores and bars have hefty deposits).

2) Dailies are actually my main source of income. I hit the Argent Dawn Tournament first, and the KotEB second. All told that's about 170g in about 45 minutes of dailies. Then I hit the SoH, the fishing and cooking dailies, and a few others that net easy gold, and I can easily pull in 350g/day if I do all the dailies. (13g per daily x 25 + 40g Argent Dawn Tourny loot bags = 365g) All told I can get my 25 dailies done in less than 2 hours if I set myself to getting it done.

3) Finally, running old dungeons is a fantastic way for gold. Right now I am hooked on running Shadow Labs when I can. About 40g in coin droppage from mobs, 30g in vendortrash/boss loot trash, 20g or so from DE'd greens, and 20-30g on Aldor rep items. Total, for about a 30 minute clear I can bring in almsot 120g. That's about 240g per hour. It's not ground breaking, but it does provide a nice change of scenery.

Also, soloing old raid bosses like Onyxia (~50g), Hakkar (~30g), and other ZG bosses (~20g/per) is a good, fun way to play old content and make a few coin too!

Of course, I am never on long enough to do everything in a day, and I am only on the game for extended periods of time maybe 3-4 days a week, mostly at night (and half of that is raids). But even without any one super form of gold making, it is trickling in, and I am hoping to keep myself comfortable for some time to come.

Khor

This is so old school I hesitate to even post this up, but Onyxia is an easy 50-100g for less than 10 minutes of work. She drops around 50g and then her loot can either be vendored or sold. Normally, I would say I make around 50g on her gold looted, then around 10g on vendor trash (the epics), and around 20g or so on the BoE rares she drops. So I enjoy this fight and try to hit her as time she comes off cooldown for me.

I go in with retribution aura, seal of light (I could probably go SoC, but just haven't done it yet), blessing of might, and judge light. I use the normal FCFS rotation, and almost never have to judge wisdom, even with using consecrate. As far as I can remember, I don't think I have dipped below 75% hp on any of my tries, so there is no excuse for dying in here. If you are level 80 paladin and cannot solo this, time to re-roll.

Phase one just run in and tank her with your back to the back wall (this prevents knockback). At 66% she'll launch into the air at phase 2. Chase her down and continue to melee (yes you can 100% melee her for this). Whelps will spawn, but don't even bother targeting them (they peck at you for almost no damage), just stay on Ony. Hit a consecrate and a few DS and the whelps will go down. Phase 3 hits at 33% or so and shes back on the ground, so tank her with your back against the back wall. She'll hit you with the occasional fear, so just run back to your tanking position when it wears off and you'll be fine.


Simple fight, great gold/loot. Happy hunting!

Khor

PS Don't even bother with fire resist here, you won't need it.

So I recently started attempting Thekal for the Tiger Mount in ZG. Still no drop yet, but figuring out the fight took me about 45 minutes of practicing before I got it down. I had done my research on how to solo this, but reading and doing are two different things.

This is a really easy fight in terms of survivability because I haven't ever died to this boss yet. Thekal and his two zealots hit for minimal damage, and if you find yourself not timing the kills right, you can easily run out of his area down the path outside a bit until the boss resets.

First thing I have to do is kill all the packs in the immediate area, which consist of several tigers and 2-3 axe throwers each. Pull them one pack at a time, as I learned the hard way that 4 to 5 axe throwers doing that ridiculous whirlwind keeps me knocked down enough to prevent myself from recovering and healing up. I can survive 2-3 of those twirlers, but more than that and it gets tricky. Once the packs are down, I am good to go.

Buffs are as follows: Retribution Aura, Seal of Light, Blessing of Might, and judging light as well, unless mana is at less than 10%, at which point I'll judge wisdom a couple times. I usually always buff Seal of Light because I rarely have mana issues.

Rotation is the normal FCFS with consecrate included, as it is needed to help burn down all the adds at once.

There are five mobs for the first phase of this fight. Thekal is the main boss, with 4 adds: 2 zealots (Lor'Khan and Zath) and 2 tigers. Key thing to remember here is Lor'Khan is the mob that will heal everyone up. His health needs to be lowest at all times during the fight so he is forced to heal himself.

For this first phase, I really have to pay attention. To get to phase two, Thekal, Lor'Khan and Zath all have to die within about 15 seconds of each other or they will rez back to full health. The way I do this is to pull Lor'Khan with an exorcism and immediately hit avenging wrath and start burning him down as hard and fast as I can. I can get him down to about 25 to 30% or so before he hits his first heal. At that point I switch to Thekal and start burning him down as fast as I can.
I am keeping Divine Storm, consecrate, and ret aura up at all times, as I need the AoE to help me pull through this.

Once Thekal is about 50% I switch back to Lor'Khan as he has healed up to about 75% or so. I burn him down again to lower than Thekal, and he is forced to heal himself again. Then I switch to Zath and burn him down up until the point I see Lor'Khan healing himself once more, then I switch once again back to him and hit him for everything I have. At this point, all three mobs are very close to dying, so I pop Avenging Wrath again, right as Lor'Khan hits 25-30% hp. Lor'Khan goes down first, then I switch to the others and get them down as well.

At that point, Phase two begins and Thekal goes kitty form and it's a breeze after that. He goes down fast, and hardly does any damage. This fight isn't stressful unless you can't get the three bosses down quick enough. Just run out, get a soft reset, and try again. It can be frustrating as hell, but practice makes perfect. For me, if I don't one-shot it on the first try, I usually get it the second.

Good luck on the mount!


Khor

Part of the greatness that is playing a Paladin is the ability to solo old content. Right now, DKs are still the kings of mastering vanilla WoW and TBC raids and dungeons, but we pallies are not far behind.

Most of what I have read on soloing Bloodlord for the Raptor Mount has been focused on either protection or holy specced pallies. I am really not that patient, so a slow and long fight does not interest me. Let me get in, get out, kick some ass, and collect my loot! Anything I run I try to do as ret.

So, here is how I am downing Bloodlord as ret. It really isn't that hard.

1) First stop in ZG is always Bloodlord for me, so I run straight there, avoiding any mobs on the way. As I get to his area, there are 4 mobs at the entrance you have to fight. Pull them inside to the right, opposite the raptor pack to the left, and put your back to the wall. Burn them down.

2) I clear the raptor pack next. I don't really have to worry about this to get to the boss, but I clear it for the hell of it.

3) Now time for the boss. For this, I pop Devotion Aura, Seal of Light, and Blessing of Kings. Just to be safe I will eat a Dragonfin Filet. This combo has proved to be the most effective for me. For judgement pusposes, I am always judging light unless I am at less than 10% mana. My stats are at about 19k HP and 6k mana.

4) I run towards the stairs and one shot the mob at the bottom. As Mandokir comes down to get me, I run up the stairs to the top of the platform and fight him at the very back. This is so when he fears me, I only run 1/4 of the way down the stairs, thus preventing me from aggroing any of the packs at the bottom. When I am out of fear, I run back to the back edge of the platform and continue fighting.

5) At the very first, both Mandokir and his Raptor are up, so I pop Avenging Wrath immediately and burn down the raptor as quickly as possible. This enrages Bloodlord, creating the hardest part of the fight. However, the enrage only lasts for a minute or two, so you have to survive. I use the usual FCFS rotation, minus consecrate, as it is a huge mana drain for this fight. While enraged, I usually have to pop Lay on Hands, because Divine Shield is still not available from the AW. I will use Flash of Light from Art of War as often as I need, and may have to cast the occasional Holy Light. I also use Divine Plea everytime it comes off CD. Right towards the end of his enrage, he is at about 60% hp. Sometimes I have to use Divine Shield when it comes off cooldown from AW, but it just depends on how the fight is going.

6) When his enrage ends, his dps drastically decreases, and I start laying on the damage. I will still need the occasional heal, but it's cake and he goes down pretty quickly after that. This part is very manageable, and if you can survive the enrage, you are golden.

No raptor for me thus far, but at least it's an easy 22g or so each time I get him down. 30g counting vendored loot he may drop.

Good luck to all those going for their mount!


Khor

Here is the current 3.2 FCFS rotation. Yes, we're still using it.

HoW > CS > Judgement > DS > Consecration > Exorcism > Holy Wrath

-----

I know many people dog on this as "easy mode", and quite honestly, I don't argue that. It's true. Start in the optimal sequence of HoW > CS > Judgement > DS > Consecration > Exorcism > Holy Wrath and then start mashing the first ability that comes off cooldown. It's really not that difficult.

I will vary the rotation up a smidge when fighting packs of mobs, going exorcism as I close in, then judge, then DS, cons, and coming full circle with CS. If I am already within melee range, it goes DS -> cons -> CS -> judge -> ex, rinse and repeat, but mainly focusing on keeping those AoE abilites up. Still, it is easy mode.

What changed with our FCFS in Patch 3.2?

Well, for starters, Hammer of Wrath is now our #1 ability when it is up. Can only be used when the mob is less than 20% health, but it has very high damage and critical strike ratio, so it jumps ahead of Crusader Strike.

Despite the baby bunny rabbit of a hit that Crusader Strike is, it's still what we'll be hitting first, followed by the rest of our old FCFS rotation. Exorcism moves ahead of Holy Wrath, but who really cares? Exorcism's nerf still has me upset. That cast time is just obnoxious.

Khor

I am a ret pally in the guild Redridge County College (RCC) on the US Shadowsong server. On Thursday, we proceeded into Ulduar 25-man and cleared out Thorim, Hodir, Freya, and Mimiron! It was the first attempts on every one of those bosses! We had a few wipes, but there wasn't anything that was overwhelmingly new, so we managed fairly well. Mimiron was the hardest by far, and we barely took him down. At the end there were only 8 or so people left standing, most of which were healers.

Now, this toon of mine is pretty new, as I created him just this year. I don't like to raid unless I know I can contribute , so I did some guild alt Naxx runs and pug Naxx 25 runs so I could catch up to my guildies, who were mostly in 10-man Ulduar. This was my third Ulduar raid, all having been 25-mans. I haven't set foot in 10-man yet, though I am eagerly awaiting our alt Naxx runs to turn into alt Ulduar runs.

Having said all that, I was putting out about 3500-4200 dps, depending on the fight. Overall I came in 6th place on DPS out of 16. Not too bad. And I finally got my first piece of Ulduar 25 loot, the Bladebearer's Signet. That was a huge upgrade for me, replacing Titanium Impact Band.

However, the upgrade did cause me a small dilemma. I was already over hit and exp capped, so this ring boosted me even higher, giving me basically useless stats. It also lowered my crit % down to 26%, which to me doesn't cut it. So, I switched from my Undiminished Battleplate to Tunic of Indulgence with two +16 str gems on it. My dps, dmg, and crit all went up. The crit went up about 2.8%, but the dps and damage increases were extremely miniscule. I am still hit capped, but am now 0.25% under the exp cap. I'm not thrilled about losing the exp, but I am sure I can get it back with another piece from Ulduar 25 (wtb +str/+exp gems). Just one tiny ring switch causing me to readjust, blah!

Guild is running again on Sunday for General and Yoggs, but I won't be able to make it. Good luck RCC! Looking forward to next Tuesday's run...

WWS for 6/11/09 <--- Clicky
This is only up for two weeks or so, so it'll expire after that time. Our Mimiron kill isn't on there for some reason...not sure why, doesn't even register any attempts. Regardless, my total damage sucks because I died...alot. Gonna have to work on that. Hardest thing for me to see are spells on or near the ground with all the melee around me. Going to have to figure out a way to keep out of the nasty damage.

Khor

Welcome to RetributionPaladins.BLOGSPOT.com!

I am a casual/hardcore WoW'er, and my main, as you can probably guess, is a Ret Pally. Retributon is my favorite of the three trees, though I dabble in the two others when needed. My focus here is going to be on what I enjoy: raiding, PvE, daily quests, soloing old content, making gold, and just about anything and everything else I feel like discussing.

I have started this blog as a little side project while I am at work. I am either painfully busy here, or painfully slow. At the moment, it is the latter, and I am busy trying to get this blog set up. I am a stay-at-home dad, have been married for 2 years, and have a beautiful new baby girl! Life is great!

I hope you enjoy my blog, and as I gather more posts and content, feel free to browse around!

Khor

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