Altitis

The risk when you’re running as a healing / tanking / DPS hybrid (paladin) with a DPS / tanking hybrid (DK) is that you’ll end up having to heal your buddy who’s tanking to ensure the core of an instance PUG is covered.

We wanted to do the amphitheatre of Anguish last night, and you guess where it ended, I finally bit the bullet and respecced Holy.

And while I will readily admit that the wrath healadin is better than the TBC healadin, despite the new toy (Beacon of Light) or the improved old toys (6 seconds Holy Shock, and no, I’m not really using it unless things get hairy, and long distance judgement of Light), it’s a lot less fun than Ret or the Death Knight.

That being said, I somehow managed to get us through Amphitheatre of Anguish, Gun’Drak and Violet Hold, clobbering together about 1070 spell power and 11k mana out of spare kit I had been assembling in prevision of this very situation, two AH purchases and a couple of well-timed drops in the above instances.

Fun situation: in VH, the run was 4DK + me. A tanking cloak drops off the Aroakka boss (if memory serves). A level 73 DK needs because he wants it for his tanking set. I need for the same reasons. And after I win the roll, he starts whining that I stole it since I’m holy spec.

Memo to the clueless whining noob with a misplaced sense of entitlement: the healer has the same right to need on off-spec gear as a DPS, and if you have an issue with that, you make sure you get really good with combat bandaging. Especially when said healer blew over 200g in respec and AH gear cost to drag your underleveled arse through the instance.

Beacon of Light is an interesting spell. Using it properly at the right time is probably a bit of a learning curve, but I’ve been tossing it on anyone taking a HP dive at the same time as Steptoe (the tank, duh) and it seemed to work OK.

That being said, it took me a moment to figure out how to macro it properly to speed things up, and here’s what I came up with:

#showtooltip Beacon of Light
/cast [target=mouseover, help][help][target=player] Beacon of Light

Binding the macro to a key then allows me to hower over an unit frame to cast, or select a target, or if nothing else is selected, cast it on myself at one single keypress.

That did the trick.

Later, I went outside and tried to kill something with my holy spec. And wept bitterly. Never gonna make 80 with holy spec. I hope the bloody dual spec feature doesn’t get delayed too much, it’s really becoming a must-have feature (and we haven’t even tried it out yet…).

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One of our regular readers would like to continue verifying how deep the often stark contrast between my favourite hardcore blogging antagonist Stop and me is running, and wrote us both asking to define our best moment in WoW (but would rather not be cited by name, so we’ll keep that under wraps).

The thing is, in three years of playing, defining the one single best moment in the game is something I’m hard pressed to do, so instead, I’ll recall a couple of highlights:

Group Quest

My first quest group was on one of my first toons in his 20ies, joining up with two other guildmates to complete several quests in Darkshore and Ashenvale. There was nothing really remarkable about the whole thing, except that the three of us would soon end up top brass in that guild, and later on transition over in one of the few successful guild mergers I’ve seen for level 60 activities. Over time, all three of us also ended up on the officer roll in that guild.

We all still play today, we are all still in the same guild (OK, me not too often since I have a dozen of horde toons wanting some playtime too).

Battlegrounds

My very first venture into WSG, at level 30 (don’t gasp, back in these days the brackets were 21-30, 31-40 and so on) on a rogue. One of the people, a pallie, queuing up at Silverwing with me (back in the day, you had to be in Ashenvale on alliance or the Barrens on horde to queue up, no fancy battle masters in the capital cities), gave me the pep talk and ran me through the basics. When the gates opened, I remember having an adrenaline rush, heart pounding, nervous like hell. I don’t remember whether we won or lost that first game, but it was definitely fun.

In late Summer and up until September 2005, I played in what I like to call the golden age of WSG – the brackets had been retooled to what we know now, and the game was still too fresh in Europe to have many level 60 toons with spare money to spend. In this relatively short timeframe, twinking was almost non-existent. I spent a lot of time on an orc shaman perfecting the twin shaman cap runs: basically ghost wolf and then rush along the Eastern edge of the map, up the ramp to the ally base, both jump down together. Two earthbind totems, two frostshocks, healing – it was a massively unfair advantage for horde, and the only time this could be stopped was when we faced three smart hunters who understood that owning the midfield was the key to victory. With Improved Concussive shot, they simply stopped anyone from passing (their team mates moping out in close quarters), and edged out a very impressive 3-0 victory in times where the best alliance could hope for was usually losing 2-3.

But then I got involved in a chat with the alliance guildmates, and we came up with a two-hunter counter to the twin shaman runs – one trap upstairs, a shadowmelt nelf hunter there, the pet hidden out of sight, and the twin shamans were separated and killed cleanly without being able to support each other. And suddenly the almost impregnable horde domination of WSG faltered, at least in that one single bracket.
The fun eventually stopped around the end of September, when suddenly every single game had at least three or four undead rogues with Fiery Weapon enchants and more HP than a blue-decked warrior (soon followed by an equally impressive army of gnome rogues). It basically removed most of the competition and fun in that WSG bracket.

Much much later, when leveling my belfadin, I stopped by in the 30-39 brackets, mainly in AB, and realizing that even without respeccing or regearing for the task, my healing definitely made a difference in the outcome of the game was definitely another highlight. It culminated with AV at level 70, where my personal pride was to sit both at the top of the healing done and HK meter, not only knowing that healing helped the team, but also certain that I had won most honour from these games.

Arenas

I joined up with my buddy Steptoe during season 2 for a lock / pallie duo. When I joined the team, it was at 1440, and we promptly proceeded to tank down to 1323. But then, the steady progress we made, week after week, while our duo started to act as a functioning, well-oiled team, was definitely one of the other highlights in the game for me. We ended up just shy of 1700 rating. That’s of course still massively in the scrub range by all standards, but for us it still meant steady progress and an improvement week after week. I still miss arenas with good old Steptoe, bless his black rotten forsaken heart.

Raiding

The first time Stoney dragged me through ZG was an amazing moment. It was just a short two-boss run and my lock was level 53 at that time. I felt utterly useless but still, the scale up from 5-men to 20-men play was definitely an impressive experience, along with the unique jungle atmosphere of good ole’ Trollville.

Another memory which stands out was when we quickly assembled 16 people to have a quick go at Kurinnaxx after an MC run – it was far from an optimal setup, it was getting late-ish, but we just went in there, cleared the trash methodically and downed the boss without any fuss. Oh, the kill itself was nice, but it was actually the pride in the guild chat that we were able to simply get job done despite not having the optimal setup (most of the guild was still in ZG kit at that time, it’s not like we were 16 full T1 or T2-clad warriors) which stands out most in my mind. Oh, and remember the two guys I mentioned in my first group quest memory? One of them was running on a dorf priest alt, and won the Vestments of the Shifting Sands. When his white-bearded and dignified elder dwarf character donned these, hilarity ensued.
I’ve always thought of him as the pink plush pocket healer since.

Tanking

Long time readers will remember I had issues with Shadow Labs early on, in particular finding groups which would be able to pass Vorpil. After Steptoe quit the game earlier this year, I respecced my belfadin to protection just so that I could go back to tanking and test out the various odd pieces of gear I had assembled in 7 months as a healbot. Well, going in there with your random PUG, I didn’t expect too much but that flawlessly executed run still stands out as one of the great moments I’ve had in the game.

Exploring

The first thing which really impressed me when I started playing WoW after two years in FFXI was when I noticed a wolf killing a squirrel in Dun Morogh. I watched this happen in awe and this simple bit of coding to improve the atmosphere of the world made a huge difference for me. Suddenly I felt like I was playing in a world which felt “real” in the sense that it conveyed the impression that it was existing for itself. FFXI always had a certain artificial quality to it, a bit like those horror rides you can find in theme parks where the various figures and effects only spring to life when a visitor (or his cart) passes by. WoW had that unique quality that it was a “living world” functioning regardless of whether a player was present or not, and other elements only reinforced that feeling. In FFXI for instance you could cross an entire zone chased by a train of monsters (back in the days you had to zone out in order to have a mob return to its spawn or patrol area, they simply never gave up), reach the gates of the city with a sliver of life and watch, with your final breath, your blood splatter the armor of the totally impassive guards who simply ignored what was happening at their feet (not that the goblins chasing you would be bothered by them witnessing your murder either). In WoW, at least at the lower levels and around factions you’re in good standing with, a guard means salvation instead of stony indifference.

In general, even years later, WoW never ceases to amaze me with little details I hadn’t noticed before. Rhoelyn’s little Azerothian picture quiz was really fun in that respect. Just a couple of days ago, while leveling my latest little belf mage in Eversong Woods, I noticed, for the first time, that behind some troll village where you are sent on one of those nice extermination quests, there was, just out of reach, a burning tower.

Well, there we go. Those are definitely among the highlights of my three years in WoW, and among the reasons why, pre-WotLK depression or not, I keep enjoying the game. Is this specific to a casual player? I doubt it. I am however quite curious to read what Stop will come up with, if he decides to answer our reader’s question as well.

And you? What are your own highlights in the game?

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Euripides over at Critical QQ relates his past 7 months of disastrous experiences in the level 70 BGs as horde. Although by all accounts how each faction fares depending on the battlegroup you are playing in, I have definitely noticed a difference (read “a slump” to put it politely) between the level 70 bracket and all other ones as well, regardless of the BG.

I do believe that an important part of that is due to the level 10-19 and 20-29 bracket which are heavy with twinking since fall 2005. Many players try out their newest toon in these brackets, get crushed, and no longer worry about BGs at all until 70, where they grind honour at all cost for their S1 kit. Which is all fine and dandy, but a combination of the inexperience, the usually wrong specs, daily PvP quests and an overall pessimistic outlook (“It’s a PUG, we’re gonna lose anyway, just hand me my mark and let’s get this done”) give the more dedicated PvPer a miserable team to work with.

Add the general Internet Anonymity factor which tends to turn your averagely educated person into a jerk when faced with adversity (like losing BGs over and over), the matchmaker which still pits organized preforms (premades for us EU players) against ragtag PUGs, and the potential for weeks of horrible BGs gets realized.

There’s one method which works pretty well in AB (a bit less in EOtS and WSG for some reason, go figure). People react to leadership. When you enter a match to grind your marks and your motivation is low because you are already sure the other 14 people with you are scrubs, setting simple instructions can change things entirely. Back in the day before TBC, I could experience this on my level 60 alliance lock: AB was pretty much horde-dominated and alliance did the headless chicken run every single time. And one day, I wrote a simple macro which I would use 15 seconds before the game start unless someone else was taking charge.
The instructions? Simple.

Group 1: Mine. Group 2: Stables. Group 3: Mill.
Announce incoming in chat, and remember, 3 bases wins the game.

That’s all it took to go from a 1-9 win ratio to 4-6 with that toon. Something I verified over several dozen games.

Nowadays on horde, it works the same way, except the dispatches are sent to LM, farm and BS. I usually add a “stables last only after the other 4 are secured” after the first nodes cap for us. And you know what? It works. A ragtag PUG will tend to follow whatever commands are given in a firm and clear manner, simply because everyone craves organization.

Of course it won’t be a 100% win ratio, among others because you can get matched against a preform, or an alliance group which organizes in the same fashion. Still, 18 marks in 10 games is a lot better than 12 in my book.

Organization beats chaos every single time. Rome built an empire which lasted close to a millennium on that principle. And the only thing it needs is a bit of communication. Your BGs suck? Don’t sit on your hands cursing the other 14 people. Take charge. At least if you fail you will have put up a decent fight. That’s always better than getting mad.

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Tobold ponders about how Death Knights will affect the tanking classes, in particular warriors, reflecting in anticipation a bit of the class angst which was palpable when patch 2.0 hit and bears and paladins suddenly became tank-viable to a point.

Since January is a good time to delve a bit into futurology, how the tanking corps will play out in WotLK is going to be dependent on a couple of different factors, both objective and subjective ones:

1. First and foremost, the DK’s proper tanking mechanism will determine which niche the class will occupy. Niches which currently remain largely unoccupied include, as others have pointed out, a proper magic resist tank. Alternatively and fitting to the shieldless tanking, the DK could be designed as a parry tank, holding aggro through DPS output and being at the top of its ability against fast-hitting bosses (and that would mean eating up one of the tankadin’s niches, but I digress).
2. Second, DK’s place in the tanking corps will largely depend on how varied the bosses and instances in Northrend will be. Look at Outlands instances, and you won’t get any serious dispute that regardless of how the bosses are working, a tankadin is the prime choice for both normal and heroic 5-men, followed by a druid. This has a lot to do with group dynamics: in the 5-men sizes where you’ll most likely find little-coordinated PUGs, lessening or completely eliminating the need for CC can speed up the pace at which you clear an instance by a huge factor. Conversely, in raids where boss fights typically last a lot longer and are more complex, an one-size-fits-it-all brute force approach is doomed to failure
3. The novelty factor: Within the first month of TBC, you couldn’t take a step anywhere without bumping into a belfadin or a blue shammie. But in the mid-thirties, it started to fizzle out, and come endgame, horde paladins are still in high demand (haven’t been in alliance chats for ages, so I don’t know how it works out for the Draenei shamans).
4. Force of habit: Warriors have been the preferred MT during two years and the perceived superior MT choice for another year. Bears have been able to carve out a spot for themselves, but while tankadins have in the meantime proven that they can tank all of the raid content, they continue to be the least popular choice, not just by mechanisms but also by the sheer gravity of the idea that Prot warriors are simply the best tank out there, to the point that the top raiding guilds to this day won’t even consider using one (but they aren’t really representative of the average gameplay).

Force of habit alone will continue to guarantee warriors a long tanking life, unless the DK turns out to be massively overpowered. And chances are, this won’t actually last. Go back in time during the span between patch 2.0.1 (December 2006, pre-TBC but with the new talents) and 2.0.3 (January 9th, 2007, a week before TBC). Bears were suddenly the king of the tanking hill AND melee damage. This was the only real time during which the warrior tanking blues was fully justified, the core of their argument being that they could be either good tanks or damage dealers, but to become one they had to fully give up on the other (something Tankadins still suffer from to this very day, by the way), whereas feral druids had the best of both worlds with one single talent tree.

It lasted all of a month, and druids got a revamp which went too far on some aspects and eventually was to be readjusted a couple of months later again. The most interesting part, though, is that all of this happened before the level cap even got removed.

Now as with the stock market, past performance is no guarantee of future returns, but in terms of intentions, I doubt Blizzard really wants to see level 80 parties consisting of 4 DKs and a healer. I therefore don’t expect DK to be designed to be exceptional either as a tank or a DD, but on the contrary in a way that while it will have its proper niche, dedication and skill will still remain a barrier to get to 80 and carve out your own spot after the novelty effect has worn off.

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The guild had a plan involving some birdies, so a quick gathering of heroes made off to Sethekk Halls, yours truly with shield and mace to tank the thing.

Our mage called a bio. Then boredom hit like lightning.

Our warlock explained he was overcome by an irrepressible urge…

Eventually, I screwed a pull in the room before Ikiss and got feared into the rest of the mobs, while the healer’s connection decided to die.

A while later, we drew our conclusions about the whole PUG vs Guild Runs affair:

Major difference, though, it was all in good humour, nobody left in a huff cursing noobs and blacklisting everyone + dog.

Only pity, the healer never reconnected.

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As I have mentioned before, I have had a rocky time in SL. Back when I was tank spec before hitting 70, we never made it past Vorpil. When I was healadin, we often had rocky runs, wiping once or twice clearing before Blackheart and then again dying to Vorpil at least once. Murmur I had actually only seen twice in about 6 months or so, because the rest takes too long and everyone wants their sleep.

I was mining and herbing in Terokkar last night, and suddenly comes the call “need tank for shadow labs”. I pick my next flower, watch the time, ponder a few seconds, and then I remember that despite having S3 chest for my healing gear, there’s still plenty of drops in that place which could complement either my healbot or tankbot kit.

A couple of minutes later and off we go, rogue, hunter, boomkin and, a rare occurence these days, a proper holy priest to keep me alive.

We enter, they give me marks, and after the first pull when I tell them I’m a bit rusty and that they should pipe up if I mark skippable stuff, they want a full clear (rare enough worth mentioning) for rep.  This better be good or the group will fall apart soon, was the thought crossing my blonde toon’s airhead.

We had a total blast.

At the end of the opening hallway, while we were engaging the summoner group on the last side, a runner aggroed the left side. One consecration and we just cleanly killed 12-14 mobs on that single pull.

The first boss was a pushover as expected. Blackheart’s room? I screwed up the far away benchwarmer group on the right side (7 mobs) because like a newbie I was getting in range of avenger’s shield to the skull… until I noticed I still had the one I had blue-squared for a trap targetted (level 70, still a noob. I should have called this blog The Eternal Noob or something), which made the whole thing a body pull.

Consecrate, discipline from the group, not even the hunter’s pet died in the process.

The rest was all of the same. Blackheart worried me when we actually killed him a split second before a 4th incite chaos, which could have wiped us, but sometimes you need a tad of luck on your side too The bastard kept having me use all aggro regaining abilities at the wrong times, so after the second incite I was really wishing for an intercept, but this particular fight has always been among the more challenging 5-men for tankadins. Vorpil died just before the second teleport. I spent some extra time making perfectly sure we were all on the same book for kiting the elderly orcish gentleman bastard to his untimely demise, since it was the first time I actually did it on Doomhammer server, and miscommunication about this fight has caused more wipes than anything else on my experience.

The first pull before Murmur was the only serious screw-up, as I had totally forgotten what pain the summoners are and took about a minute or two before getting with the program, so a 4-mob pull ended up as a 10-mob one. It cost us our boomkin, the only death in the run. Murmur finally saw us, put on a little show then just folded and handed over his loot.

From Blackheart to the Key Fragment guardian, according to my mana oil timer, we took 48 minutes, definitely a record for me. Everyone got loot they wanted, except that the spelldamage plate which dropped was a downgrade for all my equipment sets so it went the way of sharding. Pats on the back happened, everyone congratulated each other on a job well done, I again plugged the CC= Constant Consecration joke when the rogue said he was a slacker on his sapping (0 on the run, I never marked even one sap). I managed to again give good reputation to tankadins, and given I still consider myself rusty from 6 months of healing, it was definitely good to hear.

I need to take my own advice and make a macro to mark my target with the skull whenever we switch, doing it manually was a pain in the arse (they were uneasy about the “just kill the skull” thing at the first pull because I didn’t mark anything else, but definitely loved the system after that).

My only regret is that with Constant Consecration we almost missed that the hunter in the group was actually damn good at chain trapping ( I think I must have marked 4 traps in the whole run).  But then, you can’t have it all…

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Often, PUGs are a lot better than what the constant barrage of horror stories suggest, and with the bad reputations such random gathering of people have, there’s ample opportunity to be pleasantly surprised when things work out well.

Sometimes, though, you do run into genuinely bad players, who do not just play subpar but will also stubbornly refuse to listen and adapt to whatever the circumstances demand.

Shorsha, of CC= Constant Consecration (best backronym in WoW, ever), recounts one of these experiences in Blood Furnace with a huntard who stubbornly would refuse to turn Growl off his pet, while having it fight the main DPS target. The hunter eventually left without ever saying a word, and Shorsha, being fundamentally a nice person (at least from what I gather) now feels bad about it.

There are people who live with the philosophy that nobody is ever too old to learn or too young to teach, and some who may react badly to being told what to do but who can nonetheless adapt, and eventually accept that they haven’t been born best player ever and can perfect their gameplay.

There are people, however, who stubbornly refuse to admit that there is anything they could change, improve or perfect in a group setting. These are basically the sociopaths who should have, in an ideal world, stuck to single-player games, or at least to soloing. When they end up in a group, wipes or at least conflict is usually inevitable.

Competing for aggro with the MT, with the exception of specific boss fights requiring this as a tailored strategy, is a mistake one is allowed to make on the first two, three instance runs. Say in RFC, Deadmines, Wailing Caverns and à la rigueur up to BFD. In the mid-sixties, considering that the Outlands instances tend to require a bit more skilled gameplay and at least a modicum of knowledge of both your class and group dynamics, this is inexcusable.

Tanks in general require both hitting and being hit by their targets to generate the fuel of their threat mechanisms. Remove the being hit part and you cripple your tank, forcing him to blow a taunt which may be on cooldown when it would have been most required, say to save the group’s healer. This is however a lot worse for tankadins than warriors and druids.

Let’s remember how the tankadin threat generation cycle works:

• Tankadin spends Mana on active and reactive threat generation spells (consecration, holy shield, sealing / judging)
• Tankadin gets hit, increasing threat output
• Tankadin loses some health
• Tankadin gets healed back
• Through Spiritual Attunement, the Tankadin regenerates the mana to start the next round of the cycle

Without mana, no threat. Without getting hit, the Tankadin loses no health and therefore gets no mana back. In this particular case, this specific huntard’s mistake was double: Not only did he disrupt the tankadin’s threat generation cycle, he also wasted 15 of his pet’s focus points every 5 seconds, focus points not spent on dealing more DPS.

Double incompetence, cannot and doesn’t want to listen, and you get the guy to leave? I say bravo. Your group inevitably worked better as a result, if only because the threat generation cycle is no longer being disrupted.

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One of the guildies wanted to get an alt through Ramparts, so we assembled a PUG and went on our merry way.

Or rather, wanted to go. Doomhammer EU was afflicted by massive bouts of lag yesterday, and apparently (though this might have been all-European) Brewfest had been restarted in error on the server previously.

In fact, it was so bad that I took over 20 mins to hearth to Shatt from whatever I had been doing before, and one of our party members declared the whole venture useless and left. So we 4-manned the whole thing just because we could: level 60 rogue, 61 mage, and 70 full elemental shaman (and I mean full, 55/6/0)  healing yours truly.

It was quite amusing to 4-man the place. Last time I was tanking there was on my way to level 70, and it was some work. This time around, I was way overgeared and had to swap some mitigation pieces for pure stamina instead (note to self: consider getting some int heavy rings instead of your avoidance rings) just to actually conserve a semblance of mana.

The rogue and the mage took some time to grasp the goodness that is AoE tanking, they kept sapping and sheeping around after I told them not to bother (the mage had marks, and kept it up very bravely). Funnily enough, the shaman died to Omor about halfway without it having any impact on the outcome.

Very fun run, the two low level people both got something out of the run they could use. I re-learned the meaning of a shallow mana pool. Too much mitigation = thirst unending.

All that through bouts of massive looting lag. Still, I expect I’ll eventually tank the place as heroics, and tanking requires paying attention to the pulls, something I did not do while healing heroics. A refresher certainly never hurts.

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Last night, in the middle of WSG, our esteemed GM suddenly asks if I can replace her in heroic Ramparts, as she has to leave. Despite knowing that my gear is slightly sub-par for heroics (sitting on +1173 healing with talents), I decided to join, since the tank was one of our guildies, a fine bear if I ever saw one.

So we swap roles, and my guildmate informs me in a couple of blunt terms that the PUG isn’t doing well for lack of DPS.
When I reach them, they are sitting at the beginning of the curve leading up to the first boss’ patrol area. The druid had already informed that they had been in there for an hour, basically just cleaning trash. With my gear being several notches worse than our GM’s, this was going to be a costly experience.

And it was. If you haven’t tried out any heroics yet, let me describe it to you. Stuff hits hard. And I realy mean it. Your average trash mob can two-shot a clothie, and a string of unlucky crits can kill a well-geared tank in 6 hits tops. Crowd control is of course essential, as is dealing enough DPS before everyone runs out of mana. With my own gear, having a second healer to care about splash / AoE damage and some times tossing a Greater Heal on the tank wasn’t a luxury, it was almost mandatory.

That PUG had more or less decent CC (resists are an issue here BTW, contrary to normal instances), but was severely gimped in the DPS department. Just clearing to the first boss cost us two wipes, and then we wiped 4 times on the boss. The rest of the group called it quits, so the drood and me rounded up two more guildes, took a much better geared shammie and went back to business.

Killed the first boss, wiped some while clearing upstairs (“chain fear, man!” “I’m trying, they resist, dammit!”), clean kill of the second boss, and then we tried Vazruden thrice before calling it. Or at least the shammie and me did (the rest wanted another go). Gear, mine in particuliar, was the limit, I simply couldn’t heal the tank through all the damage. All in all, a costly but interesting experience. I got the Justice Bearer’s Pauldrons off Omor and am now holding my first two Badges of Justice .

Oh, and there’s this gem from the first group. Priceless.

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• Wrath Paladins: Significant Changes in Healing Techniques Ahead? (7)
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Here is my tit for wowinsider’s tat, one screenshot for another. No, there isn’t a problem with healing in BGs, nor with lock drains. There is good BG PUGs and bad BG PUGs, like with any random group experience. And while every single wowinsider poster is trying to outrace his peers commenting about patch 2.3 notes, it may just be worth reminding everyone that these are the first test patch notes. Not everything will make it to live, and not everything among what will won’t be tweaked.

That being said, three comments on the pallie changes:

• Cleanse / Purify range increased to 40 yards, good stuff, not least for BGs.
• Ret changes: This benefits PvP more than PvE. Changed your stance on pallies, Blizzard?
• Weapon Expertise changed to Combat Expertise: I have the same gripes as with the prot talent changes in patch 2.1 – Nice in theory but it is adding yet more need to have talents in an already massively over-cluttered prot tree. Sorry Blizzard, but come on. 50ish points in one single tree in order to be the best tank we can? I’m not one to QQ on announced changes and whatnot, but this is still a far cry from the improvements needed to bring pallies up to par with druids in terms of fixing hybridization.

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• Wrath Paladins: Significant Changes in Healing Techniques Ahead? (7)
• Wrath of the Lich King: NOW We Can Talk (6)
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