The trash: The eagles and the trolls don’t stop spawning until you kill the Amani’shi Tempest, who is located on the stairs. So just keep pulling

Akil’zon is a, “pay attention and move” fight. You have exactly 8 minutes to down him before enrage happens and people start dying (8 minutes is way more than enough time). Make sure that everyone in the raid is on the stone platform before you pull. Anyone on the stairs will get shut out of the encounter by a magically invisible door.

MOST IMPORTANT POINT: Every 45 seconds Akil’zon casts Electrical Storm: An 8 second channeled spell. Electrical Storm is cast on a random player, a cloud will appear above that player, anyone not under the cloud will take mega damage and die. So for that reason, everyone should run to and collapse onto the main tank before Electrical Storm is cast so that everyone will be under the cloud.

• The new Deadly Boss Mods has a timer for his abilities. I usually call out and have everyone collapse onto the tank 8 to 10 seconds before Electrical storm. You can manually time it too but I loathe doing that.
• Once Electrical Storm ends, spread out immediately. If you stand too close to someone, both of you will take mega AoE damage and get a debuff.
• Around a minute or so into the fight Akil’zon starts summoning eagles who will swoop down and randomly hit people. They are near impossible to target and respawn when they die, so just heal through them. Have a paladin put up Concentration Aura to help the casters, make sure that everyone is topped off health wise.

…as long as everyone pays attention and MOVES when they need to this isn’t a really difficult fight. I don’t have the specific details on Akil’zon’s abilities.

Edit:

1. Be wary of being overly dependant on the DBM timers or any mod timers. I’m not convinced that they are accurate at all.

might compile a ZA guide at some point. Nalorakk is a dual tank fight. He rotates between a troll form and a bear form every 40ish seconds or so; a tank is needed for each form. Nalorakk is tauntable and doesn’t deal any Crushing Blows (go wild with odd gearing :P). The encounter is resettable by running down to the base of the stairs.

Positioning
Tank him at the base of his platform, have everyone else spread out in a semi circle.

• If you are concerned about surge, have someone with a high amount of HP stand slightly further from Nalorakk than everyone else to soak the charge. Honestly though, it doesn’t do a whole lot of damage as long as everyone is spread out to avoid splash damage.
• We have both tanks standing on top of each other to divide cleave. However if one tank dodges, the other tank will soak all 14k damage. To make sure this doesn’t happen, we had a third raid member standing with us playing Cleave tampon (a healadin).

Troll Form
Mangle: All bleed effects cause 100% additional damage
Surge: Charges someone (pretty sure it is whoever is standing furthest away from him) knocking them back and hurting anyone in the vicinity (around 1.5k on plate 3.5k on cloth)
Brutal Swipe: A cleave (frontal damage) that does 14k damage on plate, divided evenly among up to 2 people.

• He doesn’t do a whole lot of damage in troll form, so have your healers conserve mana.

Bear Form
Lacerating Slash: Bleed for 1735 damage every 2 seconds for 18 seconds
Rend Flesh: Bleed for 2335 damage every second for 5 seconds
Deafening Roar: AoE, 2 seconds silence and around 1k damage to everyone (don’t know the range).

• He does A LOT of damage in bear form. Keep the bear tank topped off, the AoE silence sucks.
• Whoever is tanking the bear needs to taunt him off of the troll tank ASAP to prevent Mangle + Cleave. If taunt fails for some reason, have a paladin BoP aggro off.

It’s pretty much a gear check. Your tanks, the bear tank in particular needs to be well geared as do the healers since this is a pretty healing intensive encounter. So summary: Keep the tanks alive, spread out, make sure that each tank grabs aggro when Nalorakk changes to their assigned form.

Edit:

• I’m not 100% sure how the cleave mechanics work. Specifically, I’m not sure that the full Cleave amount gets pushed onto one tank if the other dodges/misses/parries.
• Bear tank: save your potions for a double bleed + silence. If you get all three effects, there’s a good chance that you will die.

So patch 2.3 came and the server didn’t crap out and die to my utter surprise (not kidding, was assuming that we would crash out of all instances). Zul’Aman is fun, it reminds me of Zul’Gurub, which is a good thing because ZG is one of if not my favorite raid instance in WoW. From what I can gather based off of the little bit that we tried last night, it definitely picks up where Karazhan leaves off, boss difficulty wise. Since there’s not a whole lot of literature online yet regarding strategies, bosses are taking a bit of trial and error. It’s a refreshing change; learning is fun!

Most of my mods work except for Deadly Boss Mods which continuously throws out errors every couple of minutes. I think there is a patch update out, but I didn’t get a chance to check or download it yesterday since the site was under heavy load. I can officially ditch the CT Mail Mod (I hate CT) because there is a mass mailer built into the UI. Also, pressing ALT + Z to remove the UI for screenshotting now automatically removes name tags. Nice!

I respec’d my paladin into 5/5 Combat Expertise for the stamina buff. It’s an overall 1.2k ish increase to my unbuffed health. Nice! WTB 10 more badges 🙁

Beyond the basic paladin tree changes and gear announcements, I honestly haven't looked much into the 2.3 nuances because I have been busy (and "busy with my on-and-off love affair with Steam :P). Patch 2.3, which has a confirmed release date for November 13th, is introducing Weapon Expertise, a combat mechanic which will be replacing Weapon Skill.

Expertise Rating has the same conversion rate as Weapon Skill: 3.9 Expertise Rating to 1 point of Expertise Skill at level 70. Many of the other affected mechanics also remain the same unless I am mistaken (probably am).

• Each point in Expertise Skill also reduces your target's chance to dodge and parry your attacks by 0.25%
• Expertise isn't limited to one particular weapon (unlike Weapon Skill).
• Every level a mob has over you, its dodge and parry will increase by 0.2%

The expertise cap
In other words: how much Weapon Expertise you need in order to become immune against a boss mob's parry and dodge. From a tank perspective, having all of your melee attacks land means more threat generation. Recall that at an equal level, a mob has a base 5% dodge and parry. So a level 73 mob would have a 5.6% dodge and parry (3*0.2 + 5). At 22.4 Expertise Skill and 88.36 Expertise Rating, your attacks can never be dodged or parried.

What about the attack hit table?
To my knowledge, the uncrushability calculations remain the same, but I am not 100% sure since I haven't looked into the new changes in depth. I need to update the guide since Weapon Skill was nixed.

Drysc has confirmed that Precision now affects spell hit as well as melee hit, nice! Also, a new talent for retribution: “Fanaticism will now reduce threat caused by all actions by 6/12/18/24/30%, in addition to its current effect.” Nice change, on par with threat reduction for other DPS classes. I guess my only gripe is the fact that Fanaticism is a passive talent rather than an activated spell like Righteous Fury. It’s going to be much harder for ret specs to tank.

If you haven’t already, check out the new items available in 2.3 from Zul’Aman and the heroic vendor. Several of the new additions are specific to tankadins. I’ve listed the new plate tanking additions, but there are also several new capes, trinkets, rings, weapons and what not but I don’t have time to list them at the moment, have to get back to work.

Zul’Aman drops
Battleworn Tuskguard

Chestguard of the Warlord

Pauldrons of Stone Resolve

Jungle Stompers

Heroic badge rewards
Bonefist Gauntlets

Bracers of the Ancient Phalanx

Chestguard of the Stoic Guardian

Girdle of the Protector

Iron-tusk Girdle

Sabatons of the Righteous Defender

Unwavering Legguards

It’s major badge farming time. These are the current prices on the PTRs: Pants, chest and head are 75 badges. Shoulders, waist, feet and hands are 60 badges. Bracers are 35 badges.

Site Note: Those who are only interested in reading the WoW related posts might want to use this URL to filter out all of the non-WoW related entries. October marks the beginning of gaming season with the Christmas purchasing season just around the corner (meaning that I might actually write about “other things”).

I won’t quote the patch notes because they are like, on every single WoW blog and site. I am really looking forward to the sub 60 experience increase (might start leveling my mage again) and Zul’Aman. I really thought that ZG was a fun and well done raid instance, both loot and design wise. Hoping that ZA is similar.

Threat: The old Improved Seal of the Crusader talent (15% increase to attack bonus and holy damage) is being integrated into the normal seal and the new Imp SotC will be the the current Sanctified Crusader talent. Additionally, the mana costs for Exorcism/Hammer of Wrath/Holy Wrath is being reduced, which is nice for Karazhan tanking since I spam Exorcism on certain bosses fairly often :P.

Mitigation: The Weapon Expertise talent is being replaced by Combat Expertise, which now increases Expertise by 1/2/3/4/5 AND total stamina by 2/4/6/8/10%! 10% MORE STAMINA IS AWESOME! I think that’s what, a 1k+ health buff for me? (Don’t feel like looking up my stats now).

A new stat rating called, “Expertise” is being added. According to the notes, “Expertise rating converts to expertise at the same rate that weapon skill rating formerly converted at. Each point of expertise reduces the chance for your attacks to be dodged or parried by 0.25%.” Less chance to be parried means less damage. Less chance for a mob to dodge means more threat. Intriguing.

Pets will now attempt to melee behind their target when engaging in combat! This change is nice because mobs can parry all frontal attacks. More attacks = more parries = more to heal. I try to drag the mob back a bit to reposition all of the melee, but that’s not

Itemization: New heroic badge rewards are added, take a look at the tanking choices. Compare the [item]Wrynn Dynasty Greaves[/item] to Unwavering Legguards (75 badges). Fuck Curator, Badge farming anyone? I am sort of regretting blowing my badge stash on random DPS/healing gear that I didn’t need instead of stocking them :/

Miscellaneous: The range for cleanse is being increased to 40 yards, which should make fights like Prince nicer (having to move in and out of AE range sucks). There are additional faction discounts for all levels above neutral: 15% for revered and 20% for exalted; I am all for knocking off repair bill costs. I had posted a prospective new protection spec a few posts back, but never followed through in lieu of the 2.3 changes coming. I am glad I held off!

The topic idea is from Galoheart’s post at Ardent Defender, who posted a screenshot and a description of what he carries in his bags, thought I would post my own. So what’s in your bags? This is what was in my inventory last night before Karazhan (for Gruul I use the Ogri’la pots and flasks).

41 slots are dedicated to gear, though I’ve managed to prune some of it down lately. My resist gear is stored in the bank…I used to permanently carry around my fire resist set in the Molten Core/Blackwing Lair days, but I don’t have enough bag space anymore to do that lol. I carry a tanking set (with extra spell damage, dodge, and mitigation pieces that I swap in and out), a spell damage set, and a healing set. In theory I don’t need three 2-handed weapons…

5 or 6 slots are devoted to reagents, which is sort of overkill in lieu of the blessing duration buff but meh, it’s better than running out. 15 to 20 slots are devoted to potions, consumables, and food. I left my flasks and elixirs in the bank, whoops lol.

For fun: Tonk remote, Vargoth’s staff, non-combat pet, and sometimes the Barov trinket, which gets popped at awkward moments. 4 or 5 more slots are for warlock healthstones and mage water, 1 slot is for the Void Crystals from shit drops that were DE’s, the rest of my free space is for trash, chant mats, etc.

The in game voice chat is decent despite the fact that it is borking servers around the nation (getting kicked off repeatedly sucks). The quality isn’t nearly as good as Ventrilo, but the in game integration is nice. I don’t really see this as a Vent server replacement, but it’s a good option for those who do not have one and for PuGs (don’t like giving vent info out to random ass people).

I respec’d my hunter Beast Mastery and started leveling my him again this weekend. What an awesome tree, I can’t tell you how much fun it is leveling as BM. Pet doesn’t lose aggro, less downtime, etc. Not going back to MM any time soon (though I might respec at 70 into a PvP build).

I don’t know if it’s because I’m a huntard noob, but I swear that it’s much harder to pull aggro as BM, since my damage is split more between my ranged weapon and my pet. I tried my best to be an ass and repeatedly pull threat off of the tank this weekend in Coilfang, but no dice (it was a guild twink run I have permission >:D).

A few changes that I would like to see for tankadins (I realize that a few points here are borderline whines :P).

• It would be nice for our survivability issue to be addressed in some manner. Warriors have 1,200 more base health than paladins do, they also have a ranged slot. That is a pretty large gap. Suggested solutions: Equalizing our base HP, adding a stamina libram, or adding a talent that scales block value/raw mitigation higher.
• An ability deep into protection that increases our mana return. Thinking either by increasing our passive heal gain or doing something like returning mana on block. SA alone as it is, isn’t enough.
• Better itemization for paladin specific tanking gear. Specifically: Better paladin tanking weapons on par with what is available via progression for the other tanking classes. That is: At least 200 spell damage, at least 30 stamina and some def/avoidance.
• Some way of dealing with mob spell immunity.

Oh: I bought a new mouspad yesterday. I have been using the one that came in the WoW: BC Collector’s Edition box, but it is too small. My hand scoots off towards the edge frequently. Consequently, I’ve had to up the sensitivity on my mouse to ungodly levels which has lowered my accuracy quite a bit in other games. It’s cloth, it’s huge and it’s niiiice! Kind of ugly though, wish it was all black.

So I suppose I’m back from my unofficial posting hiatus. The new theme is a template, I’ll tinker with the layout replace the Drupal logo with something else later; I don’t have access to Photoshop or my WoW screenshots on my work machine. Also thinking that it’s probably time to update and/or prune off some of the articles in the guide section, since half of them seem to be out of date.

I think i’ve finally decided on a new build to go with: 0/49/12 -> 0/44/17. Dropping Reckoning and putting 5 more points into retribution. 3/3 Improved Seal of the Crusader and 2/2 Improved Retribution Aura. Reckoning rarely procs when I tank, to the point where it is more or less a waste of 5 talent points.

Patch 2.3 is going to revamp the ret tree: The current Improved Seal of the Crusader talent will be added to the spell’s base ability. The new Improved SotC talent will give the same effects as Sanctified Crusader (increases critical strike chance of all attacks against the target by 1%/2%/3%).

Mana cost for Exorcism, Holy Wrath, and Hammer of Wrath is being lowered. The duration of Vengeance (the ret talent) is being upped to 30 seconds. Crusader strike cooldown will be lowered to 6. The increased cooldown blew not only because it lowered DPS, but because it screwed the Judgement refresh timing a bit if it missed (I leveled as a retnub on the BC beta realms).

Some time in the future, all gear will receive an additional spell damage bonus of about 1/3 +heal. So 1500 +heal will translate to +500. This was announced at BlizzCon, I don’t know if it’s for 2.3 or the expansion pack. Regardless, zomg? Supposedly, 2.3 is going be on the PTRs first week of October. I am assuming that they are aiming for a late October release, so that the holiday event stuff can be on the live realms in time for Halloween.

Unfortunately I don’t have links for the following blue posts. All were pulled from the WoW class forums. The same quotations are floating around on various WoW sites, shouldn’t be that hard to find.

• “Q: ETA on when zul’aman will hit ptr for testing? A: hopefully, first week of october.”
• “We’re pretty much focused on Retribution with 2.3, but some more general changes are being made like lowering the mana cost for Exorcism, Holy Wrath, and Hammer of Wrath. Another Ret change (just to keep the momentum going) will be an increase to the duration of Vengeance to 30 seconds.”
• “Q: comon blue guys give us some teasers! Cursader strike cool down lowered to 6? A: You’re amazing, that’s absolutely correct.”
• “No, it’s about a third. So 1500 +heal would give about +500 +spell damage.”
• “This is correct. It’s actually in addition to the healing and is “free”. It’s not going to reduce the healing bonus on the gear. It’s going to be in addition.”
• “I believe that it was said at BlizzCon that it would be about 1/3 of healing, but that’s not gospel and could change.”