Why did the paladin tier-8 chest graphic change? I was really looking foward to badge farming the booby chest token when 3.2 went live. You see, it has been a long time since I last wore a battle bra; Pre-Molten Core I think. The Karazhan chest showed a bit of midriff if I recall correctly, but it wasn't true slut awesome like some of the pre-60 pieces (nothing beats this). QQ.

Oh and, it's quite possible that I might be going to BlizzCon this year ;)

Whenever a guild heroic group is formed the conversation goes something like this:

"Where do you all want to go?"
"I don't know, what instances does everyone need?"
"What do you need from heroic <x>?"

...and then every single time I have to go to Wowhead to look up loot tables. Some of these are "I'm not sure but probably" items. I should make a separate list for Naxx and the craftables.

Haircut!This sucks, all of my mods broke. ALL of them (Outfitter and bartender retained their settings luckily). Anyway, since we were all given a free respec on Tuesday, I went 0/5/56 Retribution. That is to my understanding, the standard retribution spec for 3.0.2 give or take 1 or 2 points. I need to enjoy being retribution while it's still imba (all of the talents are balanced to 80, not 70) and before/if it gets nerfed into the ground.

I was doing my dailies on belf island and made a point of ganking every single flagged horde (not in guard range) that caught my eye. Do you know how long it has been since I have been able to flat out gank someone? A shadow priest and a rogue died; they each died in like, 5 seconds flat. I can pretty much kill almost anybody within the time frame of one stun, as well as heal myself for a 4k average non-crit Holy Light. I almost never go OOM to boot. I wonder if that is OP....lol

This is my updated retribution have and need list. None of my shit is gemmed or chanted. I have a shitton of Dawnstones, but zero others. I'm going to be cheap and socket greens for the red and blue slots; Little point in spending hundreds of gold on gems for crap retribution gear at this point in the game. If the socket bonus strength, I went ahead and gemmed for the bonus. Otherwise, I just straight up red gemmed most everything else.

• Red Socket: Bold Blood Garnet
• Yellow Socket: Rigid Dawnstone
• Blue Socket: Sovereign Shadow Draenite

Items That I Have
The green items are pieces that I have equipped in the armory now. The yellow items are pieces that are in the bank. Last night I was being lazy and used the Outfitter gear optimizer for strength to build my gearset (my bank is such a trash hole now, I can't find anything).

• Head: Justicar Crown Socket Bonus: +4 Hit Rating
  Gem Slot Red: Bold Blood Garnet
  Gem Slot Meta: Relentless Earthstorm Diamond
  Enchant: Glyph of Ferocity (I currently have the spell damage one >_<)
• Hands: Justicar Gauntlets
  Enchant: Major Strength: Arcane Dust (12), Greater Planar Essence
• Chest: Netherforce Chestplate Socket Bonus: +4 Strength
  Gem Slot Red: Bold Blood Garnet
  Gem Slot Yellow: Rigid Dawnstone
  Gem Slot Blue: Sovereign Shadow Draenite
  Enchant: Exceptional Stats: Large Prismatic Shard (4), Arcane Dust (4), Greater Planar Essence (4)
• Legs: Vanquisher's Legplates Socket Bonus: +4 Hit Rating
  Gem Slot Red: Bold Blood Garnet
  Gem Slot Red: Bold Blood Garnet
  Gem Slot Blue:Bold Blood Garnet
  Enchant: Cobrahide Leg Armor
• Feet: Skullshatter Warboots Socket Bonus: +2 Crit
  Gem Slot Red: Bold Blood Garnet
  Gem Slot Blue: Bold Blood Garnet
  Enchant: Dexterity: Greater Planar Essence (8), Arcane Dust (8)
• Trinket 2: Empty Mug Of Direbrew
• Trinket 1: Hourglass of the Unraveller
• Wrists: Bracers of Eradication Socket Bonus: +2 Strength
  Gem Slot Blue: Sovereign Shadow Draenite
  Enchant: Brawn: Arcane Dust (6)

Need to Pickup
The orange items I effectively have and just need to swap tokens for (T4 tokens, rep, etc). The red items are pieces that I need to buy with badges. I have 209 badges to spend: 60*3 + 20 = 200. 9 badges leftover.

• Shoulders: Justicar Shoulderplates Socket Bonus: +3 Hit Rating
  Gem Slot Red: Bold Blood Garnet
  Gem Slot Yellow: Rigid Dawnstone
  Enchant: Greater Inscription of Vengeance
• Neck: Shattered Sun Pendant of Might
• Ring 2: Violet Signet of the Master Assassin
  Enchant: Stats: Void Crystal (2), Large Prismatic Shard (2)
• Ring 1: Angelista's Revenge (60 badges)
  Enchant: Stats: Void Crystal (2), Large Prismatic Shard (2)
• Back: Dory's Embrace (60 badges)
  Enchant: Greater Agility: Greater Planar Essence, Arcane Dust (4), Primal Air
• Waist: Chain of Unleashed Rage (60 badges) Socket Bonus: +3 Hit Rating
  Gem Slot Red: Bold Blood Garnet
  Gem Slot Blue: Bold Blood Garnet
• Libram: Libram of Divine Judgement (20 badges)

I have my shopping list ready for tonight, lol...

Dammit, I regret my disenchanting sprees. I am almost certain that at some point I had all or close to all of the plate DPS belts from the heroic instances, the Worgen Claw neck from Karazhan, and another cape. I unfortunately, don't have any of my spare DPS gear enchanted or gemmed since it rots in the bank, prot being so great for burst DPS and all :P. All of the gear alternatives were pulled off of the MaxDPS ret gear ratings.

Edit: Added the SSO neck per recommendation.

Gear that I will most likely keep
You know, with one more T1 item I can get get the dumb set bonus. WTB Gruul loot whoring run.

• Head, Shoulders & Hands: Justicar Crown, Justicar Shoulderplates & Justicar Gauntlets
• Chest: Netherforce Chestplate
• Wrists: Bladespire Warbands
• Legs: Vanquisher's Legplates
• Feet: Skullshatter Warboots
• Libram: Libram of Avengement
• Trinket 1: Hourglass of the Unraveller
• Trinket 2: Bladefist's Breadth
• Ring 2: Voilet Signet of the Master Assassin

Gear that I will most likely replace
I'm at 90% into revered with the consortium. I guess I can finally finish off my rep and then get the gems tonight. I don't have a whole lot of spare badges anymore, I blew a crapload on gems this past weekend. Besides, I'm not sure that it's worth blowing gems on DPS gear.

• Neck: Adamantine Chain of the Unbroken
  Option 1: Shattered Sun Pendant of Might
  Option 2: Haramad's Bargain 
• Ring 1: Mithril Band of the Unscarred
  Option 1: Angelista's Revenge (60 badges)
• Back: Skyguard's Drape
  Option 1: Dory's Embrace (60 badges
  Option 2: Blood Knight Warcloak (25 badges)
• Waist: None :(
  Option 1: Chain of Unleashed Rage (60 badges)
  Option 2: Girdle of Seething Rage (75 badges)
  Option 3: Veteran's Plate Belt (40 badges or some amount of honor that I don't have)

I'm down a couple hundred gold again. That dumb tankadin belt pattern from the Tier-5 instances finally dropped in SSC this weekend, so I crafted it for myself. Screw farming the mats, I'm not that patient. I never bothered getting it commissions because it is kind of a sidegrade to my current belt. I like having paladin tanking piece alternatives for the sake of threat, mana and what not (versus warrior pieces).

The Bulwark of the Amani Empire finally dropped in Zul'Aman. FINALLY. I carry so many damn shields: one for healing, one for spell damage, one for resistance tanking (+5 resist all chant), and one for raid tanking (with the stamina chant).

Oh! Apparently there is a "Twenty-Five Tabards" Achievement in WotLK for tabard collectors, yay! Umm, so can we get a tabard rack now? Please? I like color coordinating them with different armor sets (for example, my Frost Resistance set is blue so I would equip a blue tabard). I also very much like having bag and bank space. Oh vanity...

The Sunwell badge loot vendor popped at around 8am this morning on my server. I really did try hard to find a valid reason why I couldn't go to work but alas, I'll have to wait until this evening in order to cash in. I have all of my gems and leg armor materials ready to craft and cut. It's a reasonably good idea to buy any chanting and gemming materials that you need before the vendor on your server pops, since there is a high chance that prices will skyrocket. I do though, need to find someone who can craft a Solid Empyrean Sapphire, won it off of Magtheridon this weekend. I very heavily regret prematurely socketting my ZA +15 stamina quest gem. Why didn't I save it?

For approximately a month before 2.4 I was slacking off on all of my daily quests, letting my gold stash dip below 200g across all characters. It's now safely in the 4 digit range again, thanks to the abundance of new daily quests lol (and reputation completism). Did all of my raid fish and material farming last night. I need to remember to purchase flasks before next weekend. I should otherwise be good on elixirs, pots, oils, etc. My purchase list for tonight are the Inscribed Legplates of the Aldor and the Chestplate of Stoicism. In comparison to other items for reference:

• Inscribed Legplates of the Aldor vs Unwavering Legguards: 0 armor, -7 stamina, +3 def, +43 dodge rating, +37 spell damage, -30 shield block rating, -59 shield block rating
• Chestplate of Stoicism vs Chestguard of the Stoic Guardian: +61 armor, +18 stamina (-4 if both pieces are socketted with all Solid Stars), +29 defense, -4 dodge, -35 spell damage, +39 block value, -2 sockets
• Chestguard of the Stoic Guardian vs Panzar'Thar Breastplate: +157 armor, +9 stamina, -4 defense, -24 block rating, +38 dodge, -39 block value, +35 spell damage, +0 sockets
• Chestplate of Stoicism vs Panzar'Thar Breastplate: +315 armor, +27 stamina (+3 stamina if both pieces are socketted with all Solid Stars), +25 defense, +34 dodge, -24 block rating, -2 sockets, equal block value

The extra defense is nice because I'm barely sitting at 490 now. I'll probably replace 150 health with the new +15 def chest enchant. If I find that I am avoiding attacks to the extreme detriment of threat in the easier raid instances, I can swap out pieces. Defense isn't useless past 490; I think I might have stated that somewhere months ago. Oh, none of the shields that I want will drop. Neither will that new trinket.../cursed.