New Chest Piece!!

Just a quick update for tonight! I finally got the last nether i needed to create my Bulwark of kings!

Below is a Before and After shot!

Here's the chest in all its glory!!! I'm a happy boy!!

Did some more gem changes and got my unbuffed AP from 1486 to 1592 unbuffed!!

I'll fill you in on the evenings antics tomorrow!!

Nite all!!!

Quiet Evening In...

So no Wow for me last night, logged on briefly to check my auctions and then logged for the night!

But I found some new information about where i should go for my gear/spec etc in the form of this blog!

http://retnoob.blogspot.com/

I didn't realise that by emailing Rohan over at Blessing of Kings I'd get so many people responding!

I've started making changes to my gear already, albeit a bit slowly due to gold flow problems! But I'm getting there!

Retnoob gave me some solid advice on ret-haters. Sometimes i take criticism of our class a little too seriously...its only a game, but it hurts...

Had I known what i do now when i first started playing would I have rolled a paladin?

I ask myself this some days, especially when I've had off days, and i always answer Yes in the end. I rolled a paladin because I played the original games, and Arthas and Uther were a real inspiration to me when i was faced with the WoW opening screen. What way shall i go...I don't know anything about this game..but i know that paladins owned in Warcraft 3 so i went that way.

Being a noob at the time I didn't realise that there were 3 tree's to choose from! so i leveled 1-60 Holy! LOL!! i laugh about it so much now when i think about it!

But it taught me 1 thing..Paladins have survivability on their side.

So when i hit 60, i found a raiding community, New Dawn, and we went to ZG, and eventually MC. But i never saw Naxx, or BWL. We tried AQ20 twice i think before TBC hit, but we couldn't get past the wave bosses after the 1st boss.

Then TBC hit. By then I'd already started various alts, and had learnt that there was a retribution "leveling" tree.

1 word summed up my first melee battle when i respec'd Ret: WOW!

I was amazed at how quickly my "Jeklik's Crusher" (easily one of the worst 2h Epics in the game at the time) was killing things!!

I was one of the first 10 people to hit 70 on our server!

In just 12 days i hit 70! (not /played time, RL time)

When i hit 68 I was faced with a hard decision. Do i go back to holy when i get to 70...

I'd started collecting different sets of armour to aid my decision. Healing/Tanking/Retri.

The raid group i was in had all but fallen apart. So i went holy and found a new guild that i could raid with. They promptly fell apart with 2 weeks of me being there due to Leadership issues.
The guild then split and i left and helped my friends I'd made in Divinity to form Nemesis.

We really bonded as friends and met up in RL as well! All was fine till people started either quitting the game, or wanting to leave for Raiding as we only had enough members to just about do a couple of kara runs, plus the guilds mentality was one of casual play.

I wanted more...So i leveled my Druid to 70...Balance from level 50 odd. Suddenly i found a class that really kicked ass! I felt bad for Firelight, but i pretty much retired him. I found a guild that were raiding all of Kara and moved Gwindle into it. I started raiding again! it was great!

And i was top of the Dps meters! i started getting epics, and eventually my first piece of T4.

Then one fateful day i was on Teamspeak with my old guildies from nemesis, but doing some questing on gwindle and Joey started laughing saying that Rage(a good raid guild) were recruiting a new members and were looking for a retribution paladin! I nearly pee'd my pants!

I logged over to firelight and contact the GM; Slit.

We talked and he liked my gear and asked me to contact the Paladin Class leader. 2 days i was trying to get hold of him! 2 long, LONG days i waited. Eventually i contacted slit again and said i couldn't get hold of him, so he asked me to speak to the Warrior CL instead. Within 5 mins i was saying my good byes to Nemesis, and joined Rage.

I was pretty noobishly geared at the time, i had the Polearm from murmer and 2 parts of the arena pvp gear (ret ones) on my first raid with Rage we downed High king Mulgar, and Gruul!

I was so happy! finally i'd found my place. I was able to raid with my main again, and do something i enjoyed...and i got my first raiding epic: Hammer of the Naaru.

"Look!! Its the mace from the TBC CGI intro!!! WOW!!!!"

Things went up from there! i had a goal! i wanted more dps gear! So i worked my ass off getting exalted with Ogri'la and Skyguard. Got my Boots and my Trinket.

Then i got lucky in Kara! 1 night - 2 bits of T4!! Helm and Gloves!! brilliant!

The rest is history...I've since moved Gwindle into Rage, and don't use her as much as i did, but she's my grind bot now...Sad really...but maybe I'll be able to raid with her again...Balance is fun!

Fathom-Lord Karathress....

Hello people!!

So last night we went back to SSC to have a go at a new boss. The team had tried Leo the blind the night before, and failed, so we were going to have a pop at Karathress.

Cleared the trash with ease, till we got to the caves where Leo resides.

Man those pulls are hard work. A couple of wipes was enough to get people focused.

Clearing the room with Karathress in is hard! those Boglord Collossus things are a nightmare! Talk about hard work! But we go in there and prepared for the boss.

We tried 4 times in total before giving up. For some reason our Druids were getting owned really early on by the hunter boss and the shaman boss. Raid leader said that healing was not ready for this encounter. I can kinda agree with him on some points, but watching a couple of video's on youtube i'm not sure that his idea of keeping the hunter and shaman boss in teh same place is such a good idea. Time will tell.

It was a fun fight all the same...i really was quite frustrated by the end though.

Can anyone give me any advice on this fight? Maybe i can pass it on to the Raid Leader.

Weekend Antics!

Well its Monday morning again, back at work! Boring!

Lets give you guys an update of what happened over the weekend!

Friday Night:

So i got home from work to find that the 2nd Karazhan team had been cancelled due to not enough tanks available...which was highly annoying to the 8 other people that had signed!

So i said I'd be willing to respec either my paladin or preferably my druid to tank spec so we could go, and one of our players who's moved to the US said she'd blow the dust off her warrior and we'd go. But the boomkin who was signed had slightly better gear for tanking than my druid so he respec'd and off we went!

Well what a rag-tag bunch we'd gathered!! and didn't we do well!

Atumen - Down, no wipes.
Moroes - Down, No wipes.
Maiden - Down, No wipes.
Opera - Wizard of Oz, Down, No Wipes.
Curator - Down, No wipes (and in just over 4 minutes too!!)

We had a pop at Nightbane as well, but with no fear-ward, and the warrior was a bit rusty at stance dancing. So after the 2nd wipe we called it a night. We'd have tried Aran, but we lacked interrupts.

So all in all a good night!

Firelight got a new cape from Moroes, and some priestly cloth shoulders for his off spec healing gear, and Some tanking gloves from the maiden too. Epixx Epixx Epixx!!!

After Kara, some of the guildies and i decided we should do a heroic! So off we went to Heroic Slave Pens. But we needed a tank, so i respeced prot, and off we went. 1st group pull and i was dead! This was not going to be a pretty run! But our holy paladin pulled through and all those SSC epics he had did the job really well of keeping me up! even though my gear wasn't amazing! Some-how we managed to clear the instance! Good job! More Badges!

Saturday:

Did a bit of farming trying to get some money together, herbing, dailys, etc etc.
Didn't really do very much of interest really, apart from Heroic Mana-Tombs...dear god..I've never know such an annoying instance!

Its all plain sailing till you get to the last room, and the mobs just before it.

We had rather an interesting group, a priest, 2 feral druids, me (ret paladin) and a Mage.

When we had larger groups both druids were tanking. But for some reason our priest wasn't up to scratch really. About half way through the last room she had to go. We got a Resto druid in and we did fine. Cleared the last boss all done!

Got a nice mace, and a nice axe as i was the only one there that could wield them! Not that they're better than what i have, but they look cool!!

Also I got another Primal Nether!! So i just need 3 more now! getting close now!

Sunday:

No raid for me today sadly :( So Heroics!!

Got a group together and gave Heroic Black Morass a go. Took my boomkin for add control this time. This group have cleared this instance before, only difference was instead of a mage we had a elemental shaman. 1st try we got to the 16th wave and i was killed. Those casters hit hard! Harder than i remember. I was res'd then i died again! then the last boss came, and we wiped. it was chaos! So we tried again. and the same thing happened again. so we decided to call it and move on. We settled on a quick 3 badge run in Heroic Mech. Which was nice and smooth.

We then lost our hunter and our shaman, and i wanted to try and get my libram from Heroic Blood Furnace 1st boss. took me close to an hour to get 2 members. In the end our Guild Leader, Slit, came and we started. It was a bit messy as our healer kept having lag or dc'ing for the start. Blizzard really really need to get 2.3 out so i can get my-30% Threat! Just kept dying!

Got there in the end though, and guess what! NO BLOODY LIBRAM!!! Gaaarrrghh!!

I've lost count now how many times that hasn't dropped.

But it was another badge. and some HH rep. *sigh*

So i had some dinner, and the raid team went off to SSC to try Lethoras the Blind. Which they didn't manage. but it was our first encounter with him. So maybe next time when I'm there!! ;)

Instead of raiding I did another Heroic!

Managed to get a group together to Heroic Botanica.

Wow that 3rd boss is a nightmare. We gave up in the end and moved on. I'd taken my druid as we needed way more dps than Firelights capable in there. Plus Gwindle's now really close to exalted with Sha'tar, and Firelights already exalted.

Got enough badges for Gwindle to get a new cloak. Also i got a new feral dps staff!! so I'm getting some really nice feral dps/tanking gear together! So i think I'm gonna try going feral for a few days to try it out! she's not been feral for a really long time! not since she was lvl 40 or 50 when i respec'd boomkin!

So that was my weekend!

Looks like I'm signed up for the raid tonight so raid news tomorrow!

That's all for now! Bye! *waves*

Quiet Evening...

Had a night off from WoW last night, just did a quick first 2 bosses in Shadow Labs with my druid helping a guildie then logged off for the night.

I was told that last night in Gruul's of the T4 tokens that dropped they were all Defender ones. So nothing for my paladin after all! phew!

I suppose that i should really hope that more of the Rogue, Shaman and Paladin team get their t4 shoulders and legs so that when they drop for my they wont cost me too much in the way of DKP.

Karazhan tonight! I'm still after a couple of nice pieces in there, but at least i dont have to worry about the t4 drops.

Anyway not much else to report at the moment...more later maybe.

Bye!

Hydross is a P.I.T.A.!!!!

So we ventured into SSC again last night, much to my annoyance cos it means i'll not be included for gruul/mags tonight and i'm really aching for more t4 stuff.

But we had a fun night as usual. We cleared the trash to Hydross with ease, and then rebuffed and went in...1st attempt was smooth, but had bad luck with hydross randomly turning and killing people in the raid, myself included.

I really wish they'd move the GY in zangar a little closer to the instances...its such a long walk.

So we tried again, and had more bad luck. I released and started running back, got into the instance, and just as i walked onto the lift pad to go down i dc'd. I then couldnt get back into the game. Every time i tried it would just disconnect me. So i logged my druid and was able to get into the game. Logged out and back in as firelight. Low and behold i was dead again! Typical!

So i had to corpse run *again*.

This time however we got him down!

That nice epic plate healing helm dropped and a really nice cloth robe that one of our warlocks really wanted!! DKP bidding went a bit like this:

>1
>2
>212!!

Much laughter and people saying that "Kuta really wanted that" and he was one happy lock! He still had Robes of Oblivion so a major upgrade for him!

On to the lurker we went, but now we'd spent quite a long time doing hydross so our plans for attempting a 3rd boss were flushed.

Trash went down easy. Just before the last group of mobs beware! there's a nice gap that even male draenai can slip through (yes even with there HUGE shoulders!!) and into the water and die! Its happened every time we've been here lately! The fishies make short work of anything that drops into the water!

So Lurker went down quick 1st time, just like last time! No problems! we've really got him down! Such an easy fight!

So the ring dropped again, and once again i was told it was a druid ring and i couldn't have it.

Maybe next time there wont be any dps druids who want/need it.

So the raid was over, and I'd had a warrior from another guild whispering me during the raid, as my Druid has the Mongoose enchant so I'm always in demand....

Someone told me that I'd make a fortune with that enchant...most anyone has ever given me as a tip was 50g. and that was a 1 off. Its just so expensive on our realm to get the mats together. Over 500g in some cases depending on the current price of nexus crystals.

I suppose i was lucky to get that enchant really, its so rare on our server I get whispers at least once or twice a week for it. I should really go and pimp myself out in IF more often.

But when I've tried I always just seem to get the following:

"WTS Mongoose Enchant"
"How much?"
"Get mats + tip"
"Hang i check AH"
"OK."
"WOW!!! That's too much for me!! Sorry."
*sigh*

Unusually I've had a few twinks asking for it! which was a surprise!

Anyway enough drivel from me for one day!

Tuesdays Suck!

Well last night wasn't such a great night compared to Monday, but i still managed to have some fun either way!

Logged onto WoW and was greeted by my Arena team mates wanting to do some Arena before the raid started. So off we went...Boy were we in for a shock!

Warlocks! Everywhere! Covered in Merciless gear! Ouch!

And i thought 1 warlock in a team was imba, try coming up against 2!!! Resto Shamans are imba too! We won a few fights, but we didn't fair too well last night so after a frustrating 30 Min's we hung up our capes and decided not to do arena on Tuesday nights again!

So i wasn't selected for the Karazhan raid, which was kinda disappointing, but i found out later on that team 2 who i was with on Friday last week had an awful time and didn't kill anyone!

Shocking really! I mean the guild have had Kara on farm for some time, but i was told it was down to lack of focus with Aran, and they were gonna have 1 shot at the Prince before signing out.

So I found some friends who were doing Headless Horseman runs to try and get the helm.

5 Platies all wanting that helm!! And did it drop once? NO! Typical!

I'm hoping I've got another week to try and get it, I really want it! Its great for DPS! And a good bit of RP fun too!

So after 5 tries at the Headless Horseman I was gonna log off, when someone asked if anyone wanted to go to do a quick 3 badge Mech Heroic Run. So off we went!

Mechanar was fun! on the 1st boss, the one that gives everyone a polarity charge, we managed to get 3with the same charge and i did an impressive 5.5k + 5.5k Burst!! 11k!!! Needless to say i drew aggro from the tank, even after waiting a few seconds and with Salvation on! The resto druid we had was doing a good job keeping me up and i was hitting really hard! I've never seen that boss go down so quick! I had to use my lay on hands right at the last second to stay alive, but we got him down before i had to start popping pots!

Got my Three badges, and On the last mob i hit Exalted with Sha'tar!!

So i flew back to Shattrath and picked up my new ring!

A'dal's Command
+29 Strength
+16 Agility
+18 Stamina

Love it!

Anyway a rather uneventful evening...perhaps tonight will be different!

25 man Raiding tonight! Weeeeeeeeeee!!!

Fun! Fun! Fun!

Did I have a fun evening or what!!

I logged on after work, to find my new 3v3 Arena Partners whispering me asking me to do some arena quick before the raid started, so we managed to do 6 matches in 20 Min's, and aren't we an interesting team!!

1 Holy Priest
1 Warlock
1 Retri Paladin

It seems to work really well! The teams never know what to attack.."do we go for the paladin, or the priest...oh hang on the paladins hitting me with that huge hammer...OW!!!"

We did 6 matches and only lost 2! That's the best record I've had with an arena team! I was rather pleasantly surprised! So where the rest of the team!! Its good having 2 stun abilities.

Anyway after my short pvp session I had a short time to get ready for the raid!

Yesterday i found an amazing bit of information on this blog: http://kazielmmo.blogspot.com/

It listed a lot of items required for retri paladins in raids!

So i bought myself some:
Roasted Clefthoof: Gain 20 Strength and 20 Spirit for 30 min.
Scroll of Strength V: Increases the target's Strength by 20 for 30 min.

I needed to buy some Strength Potions, but there were none on the Auction House at the time. For the next raid I defiantly want to get some of the following:

Elixir of Major Strength: Increases your Strength by 35 for 60 min.

These 3 items alone would add 164 Attack Power! That's a big jump!

I also changed a few gems in line with GSH's comments getting my Hit rating from 61 to 79!

I'm a bit strapped for cash so i could only afford rubbishy gems for the time being so i should be able to bump that up a bit with some nice blue gems by the weekend.

So off we went to SSC, We all arrived, the usual death at the elevator followed by someone on vent shouting "*#?*!!!!!!!" and lots of laughter... One tip for anyone going there, stand in the middle of the lift-pad!!

We buffed, and off we went!!

This was my 2nd time and SSC, but only my first time from the start. The last time i came here We were just doing the Lurker, and didn't have to do the start trash mobs. So imagine my surprise when i was ganked at the first Bog Lord thingy! That's rather a nasty spray damage thing they do! Hit me 4/5 times and i was dead before i realised i was dying! Needless to say i was much more cautious at the 2nd one of them!

So after the trash was clear Hydross lay ahead of us...Now I'd not seen this fight other than on Youtube so was quite nervous!

The first try and we got him to 60% and then had 2 lots of adds come at once, which wiped us.

Second try same thing happened again, but at 50%.

Third try we figured out what was going on! One of our mages was drawing aggro by bandaging during the transition and for some reason the spawned 2 lots of adds???

Anyway we took him down pretty quick, and there was much rejoicing!!

Loot was pretty tasty! I walked away with some new shoulders for me to play with!

Pauldrons of the Wardancer
1206 Armor
+38 Strength
+21 Stamina
Red Socket
Blue Socket
Socket Bonus: +3 Crit Rating

A huge boost in strength over my pvp shoulders (Gladiator's Scaled Shoulders) and once i get the Aldor Enchant on (+30 AP & 10 Crit) they should do me pretty well for PVE till i can get the T4 shoulders or T5 maybe...

So Hydross was down, and we moved on to The Lurker Below!

Trash was a pain, 2 Nether Vortex's dropped though, i bid on one, but didn't get it. I need 2 for my chest upgrade, but I'll hang on till I've upgraded it with Primal Nethers First. They seem to go for 10/15 DKP so not so much.

So on to the Lurker! We've got his number! Downed on the first attempt! No problem!!

I have the bracers he drops already, but a nice Neck item dropped, but it went to a druid.

Are retri paladins supposed to share loot with Druid tanks? +strength +agility +stam

So the raid ended there for the night.

So after raid had ended a shaman guildie asked me to join his 2v2 team. We only had time to do 1, before we went off to do the Headless Horseman thing in Scarlet Monastery Grave Yard!

Tried 5 times to get the Helm, but still no joy. /cry

I must have tried 20-30 times now!!

I've got all 3 rings, the non-epic flying broom, and the epic riding broom(ground)....But no helm.

I've only seen it drop once on my first ever try..and i lost the roll to an annoying warrior. (to be fair he did need it a lot more than i did!)

Any way that's enough for now!

Byee!!!

My First Blog Entry...

OK Welcome to my Blog!!

This is my first foray into doing something like this, so please be patient while i get to grips with what I'm doing and where i'm taking this blog!

Firstly let me introduce my self!

I'm Alex - and this is my Retribution Paladin Firelight:
http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Steamwheedle+Cartel&n=Firelight

As you can see I'm in the raiding guild Rage on the Steamwheedle Cartel EU server.

We've recently started raiding in SSC and we've taken down Lurker and Hydross so far in there.

We have Gruuls Lair and Kara on farm, and Magtheridon has been taken down a few times, but not quite on farm as yet.

Over the coming weeks I'll be adding information about how we're progressing, what happened on raids etc and what new gear I've gotten and what changes I've made to my gear.

I'd like to thank GSH over at http://blessingofkings.blogspot.com for giving my first "what to do" regarding my Paladin.

Any help and suggestions regarding my gear would be greatly appreciated. I'll take all criticisms and suggestions!