Blizzard undoes the bubble nerf

After several days of wild whining on the official paladin forums about the expected upcoming nerf to the paladin bubble the unexpected happens - Blizzard backs down on a proposed change. Good news for the paladins but only temporary, Blizz will find a way to balance the divine shield...

Re: Forbear. and DS/AW nerf added to ptr note

"After further testing, we've decided to undo the following changes to the Paladin for the next patch as we felt the adjustments were too imposing on the class' ability to tank in dungeons.

-Increased the duration of "Avenging Wrath" by 50% (now lasts 30 sec.) This ability no longer invokes "Forbearance", but shares a cooldown with "Divine Shield".

-Forbearance now reduces damage dealt by the affected player by 15%.

With that being said, we do feel that the Paladin is currently capable of producing too much burst damage and are investigating reasonable ways to make minor reductions for the future. "

Very interesting as my Paladin, Hexapanther, is nearing 60 and one of my hopes is to bring him into the arena at level 70...

Level update
Hexapanther dinged 59 yesterday after some questing in Silithius. I respecced him from heavy protection into heavy retribution. The AOE grinding days are over for now.

Ripperjack the Troll dinged 15 somewhere in the Barrens. He will slowly progress mainly during lunch hours...

Your WoW personality

I spotted a "wow personality test" over at Kinless' Chronicles and just had to take it. The result:

Human Warrior Humans tend to be the ones in the middle. Not as sexy as the Night Elves; not as stumpy as the dwarves or gnomes. As a human, you pretty much go with the flow of things. As a warrior, you like to take charge of things. You feel that you're an important part of what's happening - and if things turn sour, you like to have a very large weapon on hand that you can use to negotiate. Find out your real-life WoW race and class at QuizGalaxy.com

Well it could be worse.. still I am happy I ended up a melee character. I've had lots of various characters in WOW but it seems only melee characters are surviving the race to 60. I've tried to love and play clothies but it just don't work for me. Something about them being totally fragile and depending on gulping mana potions left and right.

I currently have a Blood Elf Mage at level 20 that I hoped would keep my interest but right after finishing up the Bloodmyst area I created a new horde character - a Troll Warrior.

Full subtlety rogue build

Well, being persistent about actually doing something about the carebear nature of the outlands at Ravencrest I respecced Hexapuma from a full Seal Fate / Combat Fist build to going all over to the dark side... the subtlety tree.

I've always loved the talents in the subtlety tree but I've always felt forced to stay assassin/combat. To hell with it... I need a good gank setup to start fights and going all out in the subtlety tree allows me to do that.

Hexapuma is still 60 so I had to do with a 60 talent build... and in my case it turned out to be 10/0/41. I am not completely satisfied and I think I put a few points wrong. I do miss imp. gouge for getting enough energy for backstabs. Initially I did not use hemorrage so I missed improved sinister strike... after a few test runs I've slowly adapted to the new way. I need a good slow fist/sword to dish out hemo damage but also a slow MH dagger for those imba ambush crits.

Using shadowstep is a ton of fun in PVE.. but its use is limited when you want to pick a mobs pocket first. And in order to get that lockpicking up you need to pick a lot of pockets for junk boxes.

So... what am I doing in the subtlety line of PVP?

Sneak up to the target - with Master of Deception it is much easier to approach higher leveled players without alerting them. It might not be all that useful at 70 but right now it is godsent as most of my targets are 58-62.

Shadowstep to target *poof* and you are behind your mark. This is incredibly handy. No need to slowly stalk your target. Step into the shadows and you are ready to plunge the dagger into the unsuspecting fool's back.

Behind your target you have many opptions but start out with Premeditation and what ever opener you go with you almost always have a full 5 point finisher to follow up with. I haven't fought many paladins or warriors yet but I am dying to try out garrote -> rupture & vanish... with preparation it is possible to do this twice...

I've found that my pvp skills are somewhat lacking since my long break and also that I've spent too much time in Battlegrounds.

Better start reading up on some rogue tactics ... I've always liked the ones Osiris wrote. I wonder if he still plays a rogue...

I am stuck on a carebear server?

Am I playing on a PVE server?
Seriously the horde and alliance seem to have a truce going on in the Hellfire Penisula. Orc and human fighting side by side... I jumped an undead priest and shortly after his demise I recieved whispers from another ally in the area to cut it out since the horde would revenge...

Seriously, I feel that if you want to play side by side with the other faction - go play on a PVE server. I chose a PVP server to experience the thrill and additional excitement of being a munchy target at any time. Yes, sometimes that means I get to run back to my corpse, yes, sometimes several times.

When I started playing WOW two years ago the world of Azeroth was a harsh place. If you spotted a red it surly led to combat. I played a warrior and I did get my fair share of corpse running from "imba" mages and priests. Strangely enough - I miss it. In the end game world pvp dimnished and now it seems to be even lower with all PVP concentrated around the BGs and the arenas focused on item grinding. Dont get me wrong.. I love fighting in the BG but I also need that extra excitement when doing mundane quests.

Combat and PVP in the Outlands

I've started on the various quest chains originating in Honor Hold and I find myself replacing my PVP and Tier 1 gear at an alarming rate. Actually I love that... WOW is an RPG and gaining level and replacing equipment is what you are supposed to do, anything else and it would have been a huge disappointment.

A few observations so far:
1 - World PVP - almost non-existent. You pass horde characters sometimes alone and sometimes in groups. Neither attack. People are simply to busy to level to engage in some serious pvp. For me still being 60 and everyone else around 62-65 it doesn't do much. But I do play on a PVP server... My initial 1-60 race back in the days were riddled with world pvp, corpse runs and gankpatrols. I can't say I miss the corpse runs but I do miss the excitement and the fear...

2. The Quests - Blizzard is doing so many wonderful and new types of quests. The bombing run quests are excellent! I hope these odd quests are not the only ones, rather I hope you'll be able to find these all the way to the end.

3. Visuals - So far I am kind of disappointed with the looks of the outlands. It feels like the unholy mix of Max Max's wastelands and some crazy purple cartoon from the childern's channel. The floating islands are very cool though ^^

Gearing up
A nice MH fist of the monkey dropped yesterday.. and so far I have not specced into any specific weapon type so now I am wielding a fist. Very nice.. I've also managed to replace the very cool ghostshroud with a very ugly leather helmet. Feels good to wear greens again =)

Draenei update
My Draenei warrior dinged 20! I have completed almost all the quests on Bloodmyst island including the two-three elite ones. I'll be finishing up those and then probably put the character on hold while I try out the Blood Elves starting grounds. My intial plan was to level a BE mage but after a few comments about how cool the BE stealth animation looks it might be another rogue =)

My combat rogue build

So I finally took Hexapuma into the Outlands today and before doing that I had to decide a talent build. Hexapuma mostly have pre-TBC pvp gear and the weapon arsenal consists of lower tier raid weapons, which means that most weapons would probably be upgraded in the first few levels. In order to be as weapon independent as possible at start out I opted for a Seal Fate - Combat build... or 30/21/0 build at level 60 and then continue to add points to the combat tree towards level 70 (especially imp kick and other goodies).

My rogue combat build at 60

You might notice that I haven't put any points into daggers/fist/sword/maces.. but the idea is that what ever godly weapon I'll find.. I'll pump up. Most likely I'll end up respeccing to try out different things but this will get me started.

A quick description of my chosen build

Pros
* Strong PVE
* Blade flurry and AR+EV = lots of multi-pulls
* Fast combo-generation with SF
* Strong finishers with imp. evis ( When trying out the new finishers I might end up ditching this)
* Quick-recovery - very interested to see how good this is with my life leeching gear (lifestealing enchant, heroism deck etc)

Cons
* Not especially powerful in PVP (in my experience combat build isn't really that strong since it lacks true burst damage)
* Not that fun - mash sinister strike over and over again.
* No MOD! - big issue for me since I like to sneak around, both in PVP and PVE to explore new content.

I'll keep you updated of how my build feels and when/if I do any changes. Right now I can tell that I am very interested in going maces. I'd love to see how the stuns will work out in the arenas. Disruption ftw!

Draenei update
My Draenei warrior have now reached the respectable level of 16. That means she is still adventuring in the Draenei zone. I am still very impressed with the zone - the way blizzard have spread out the quests is really great. You have something to do in every area of the zone and there is very little running back and forth. Something I found you would be doing a lot when leveling up as human or any alliance for that matter. Darkshore anyone?

Protection Paladin
Hexapanther my paladin keeps amazing me with how awesome a protection specced paladin can be. I've now main tanked Zul'Farak and Sunken Temple and the Aoe grinding he is capable of is amazing. I regularly hit 40-50K exp/hour when grinding at the "correct" spots. Good grinding spots so far include:
* Sorrow Hill (the undead)
* Tanaris - Noxious Lair
* Tanaris - Pirate cove (forgot the correct name)

Regarding the noxious lair - this is probably my only character that actually thrives down in the insect caves.. multiple adds - no problem, poisoned - no problem it can be cleansed...