Paladin TPS in 2.1

I normally don't make pointless links to forum threads and such, but I found this nugget of amusingness on the paladin forums.
Office Space: Paladin Edition

Anybody else have any good Paladinified Office Space quotes they can come up with?

Ever wish you could turn back time?

Someone on our server recently passed away. I only knew the guy here and there and in PuGs. However, I feel horrible simply not not knowing him. All of the wonderful things that were said about this person (there was a forum post about it) and I didn't have anything worth saying at all. He came to one of our MC runs once, and we all joked privately about how he sounded high and or if he was high, (Apparently he always sounded like that and was a recovering drug addict.) We didn't hate the guy, he was fun and such, but it was that simple idea of the fact that he was indeed some sort of 'noob' or 'sucked at his class' or 'was always high while playing' or whatever.

I let the opportunity to make a friend slip through my fingers. I had the chance, but due to my own jerkfaced attitude of assuming he 'wasn't a good player' I never had much of an opportunity to get to know him. I just hope by bringing something like this to light that everyone can realize that there are people behind the keyboards and not just 'avatars'. Get to know your fellow players, whether they're good or they suck, perhaps give them some pointers or just go out of your way to know them. Remember, the human interaction they have with you, may just be the last human interaction they have in their life, make it a positive one.

Shameless Spam

Okay, well... I thought it'd be a cool idea to get myself a free Wii (I know, I don't have huge boobs or anything to try and seduce you into signing up, I know a girl who got like 5+ free iPods because she was attractive and had schmucks sign up for stuff), and with so many people checking out this blog, I'd assume there would be some folks who don't know about GameFly. Basically, you rent games off the net, and you get EXTREMELY good discount prices on used games (Like... 2 weeks after release a game drops from 50 to 35) and during holidays like x-mas, they have blowout sales with TONS of games under 10 bucks. In general, it's a great thing to do, and even better if you split the costs with someone (a gaming significant other, your family, your room mates, etc.) It's a pretty sweet deal if you play games outside of WoW consistantly.

If you're interested, click this link --> Sign-Up!

Documentary

I just read on WoWInsider.com about this interesting documentary. I just figured I'd take the opportunity to share a little story. By some odd stroke of luck, a guild member befriended a goldfarmer. They quested together, and did all sorts of things, unfortunately nobody in the guild knew chinese (the farmer was teaching my friend a bit) and so we didn't get to communicate very well. If I remember right he was an undead rogue... and we took him on some instance runs with us. He played extremely well and was a ton of fun.

But, the most amazing thing about him was that he knew how to work as a team, share, etc. He was no different than you or I. Perhaps he was off the clock, perhaps he was just fed up with his job and having all this hate directed at him. In the end he was a guild member and a great friend. Unfortunately the guild merged with a larger one, and there was no way they would invite our friend, one of the pre-reqs to joining their guild was to speak with the guild leader on TS. Eventually I quit playing for awhile, and when I returned he was gone, I have no clue what happened to him, I can only assume his account was banned or he moved on to a different server/character for farming.

Either way, he was a great guy, and I just wanted to remind everyone, regardless of whether goldfarming is wrong, that there are living breathing people on the other side. The best we can hope for is that they'll realize what they're doing is against the rules of the game and start playing this game for fun instead of a pay check.

Question of the Day: Why did you roll a paladin?

So, why did you roll a paladin? Were you suckered into it by Blizzard's whole: "Melee Healer" type of thing it threw at you during release (Y'know, where they made it sound like DPS & Tanking was the Paladins main abilities as opposed to being a Main Healer/Support). Were you impressed with Arthas, Uther, and the sort and wanted to bring down righteous fury upon the legions of scourge? Were you that Horde guy who said "Man, Paladins are overpowered... I want to try that out." or were you the Horde guy who said "Okay... so these guys rock at a lot of stuff... their DPS sucks, but that's okay."

I am the final option. I rolled a paladin in order to support my guild, I knew we needed paladins, and I wanted to check out the Blood Elves anyway. I wasn't sure if it was going to become my main, but it eventually did. I went Holy simply because I've never tried a 'healing' spec before, I've always been DPS or on my other Paladin (He was a 40ish something when I started playing him, it was a friend's character) as a Prot. In general I didn't know what to expect, I didn't know what was overpowered, what the 'good' specs were or anything. I just went in there to have some fun and decided that Tanks/Healers were the hardest thing to find in most groups and specced for both accordingly.

So, how did you decide upon being a Paladin?

Thank You!

I just wanted to say thanks to everybody who has been reading this blog, whether it's from a link on WoWInsider, from my signature on WoW Forums, or from a link on another WoW Player's Blog. It's greatly appreciated and it's nice to know that people actually listen to my insane ramblings.

On a side-note: I will try to be keeping this blog updated at least daily or bi-daily if possible if time/topics allow it. I've got a few more things up my sleeve, perhaps even some more talk about retribution paladins, which definitely need some love regardless of if I will spec as one or not.

Scroll of Maelstrom

To my left (Hi-Jacked from WoWInsider) is a new item. People may hail it as the 'casual' friendly scroll. That's what I thought at first. But, let me break it down into a few possible scenarios:

Farm for Weeks
Okay, so... you've got Vashj on farm status. Good for you! Now, for whatever reason, you want to outfit all the casual folks in your guild (yes, there are 'casual' guilds who can do raid content). So, it takes 1 week per scroll, that's 24 weeks which is 4 weeks less than the sequel to 28 Days Later, which is exactly 6 months. So, it will take HALF A YEAR to attune a group of casuals to front their own assault upon Serpentshrine. This method is possible, but in no way is it some sort of godsend to casuals.

Selfish Bastards/N00bs in Serpentshrine
If there is some reason you guys aren't consistently downing Nightbane or Gruul or able to do a Heroic Slave Pens. Then there is DEFINITELY something wrong with how your guild operates. If it's simply unwilling to help, or just pushing forward with a small group of 25 or so folks... that would be the only reason I would see for them being unable to wtfpwn old content that's on farm status. If they're downing Vashj, there is NO reason why they shouldn't be able to help you.

Rogues? Hunters? Sorry, wait in the back of the line.
While we're assuming that there is 1 scroll per day, and that Serpentshrine can only be run once a week, and it's using the 'Farm for Weeks' scenario. You're going to have a LOT of DPS classes sitting in the back seat for classes like Tanks & Healers who are always vastly more 'key' and 'rare' compared to the over abundant DPS classes. So, you'll be at the tail end of the list, perhaps 2 or 3 months after they have Vashj on farm status.

Overview
Okay, this is DEFINITELY not a godsend for Casuals unless she drops multiple scrolls at once, she may not even have a 100% drop chance for the scroll to begin with. I think it's a nice step in the right direction, but I see it more as a 'Get your alt attuned' thing, or even a 'Let's help that Holy Priest get into our raids since he's unavailable on the days we run Karazahn.' sort of deal.

Jacked up and... not good to go?

Well, with Starcraft 2 being announced I can't help be excited. All those awesome starcraft people like Jim Raynor, Kerrigan, and uhh... Nova... and umm... err... oh damn... I just realized I completely forgot the plot of the original Starcraft games. That's not good...

Has anybody else fallen into this category of "Man, that was 10 years ago... time to break that game out again and play through the campaign"?

The Tseric Salute

"When you can understand how a group of belligerent and angry posters can drive away people from this game with an uncrafted and improvisational campaign of misery and spin-doctoring, then perhaps, you can understand the decisions I make. Until you face mobs of psychology, you will not see my side.

Until you see some bright-eyed player coming onto the forums wanting to know what they should spec as this class, and see them shat on and driven away by petty and selfish people who are simply leveraging for game buffs, you will not understand.

You will not understand until you have to see it daily, for years...

Until you understand that many people will trod over you to get where they're going, or to get what they want.

Until you understand that so many people will agree, completely, 100% with a loud, vulgar and assertive individual, not because he is right, but because he is making a stand against "the Man"; to take no critical thought in what they say, but simply to hop on board.

Until you actually try to acknowledge those who do not speak on the forums, for whatever reason they have, you will not understand.

If you think an archaic business formula like "the customer is always right" works, you fail to understand customers, not a customer. It is a collective. No one person, even myself, is truly above the whole.

I simply have the unfortunate quality of being easily singled out. "

A follow up post to all the flames and posts that proceeded his proclamation:

"Can't help it.
Posting impassionately, they say you don't care.
Posting nothing, they say you ignore.
Posting with passion, you incite trolls.
Posting fluff, you say nonsense.
Post with what facts you have, they whittle down with rationale.
There is no win.
There is only slow degradation.
Take note. It is the first and only time you'll see someone in my position make that position.
You can be me when I'm gone."

I just want to say that I completely side with Tseric on this. The forum is a cesspool of trash and scum at times. But, there are often brilliant and helpful posts in all of those NERF THIS, OVERPOWERED THAT, discussions we just have to find them.

I can only hope that Blizzard thinks of this and perhaps starts to enforce the forum rules a bit more and eliminate trolls and idiots.

I can only hope that the World of Warcraft community can grow from this whole fiasco, and fight towards a better cleaner forums.

Bah... who the hell am I kidding... it's always going to be the same, but at least somebody from Blizzard had the guts to say something about it and hopefully get the ball rolling.

Question of the Day: Homosexuality in Azeroth

I play on a roleplaying server, and this question came up.

Is homosexuality considered a taboo in Azeroth?

This is strictly lore based and not based on players bringing in their real world prejudices & thoughts, but in a controlled non-interactive environment. While there is no proof that it's a common practice, there is no proof that it's against the faith of the 'Light'. Also, just because you saw two Night Elves in Goldshire together doesn't have any bearing on the lore of Warcraft.

My personal feelings on this topic are as follows:

There are only a handful of races that I think would go this route, I can definitely see this as a Human thing, it wasn't uncommon in the 'old days' (in which most fantasy games are based around) to have a young male as your lover, or perhaps multiple young males, it was the 'thing to do'. Blood Elves? You betcha. They are by far the most corrupted playable race in Azeroth. They've done and seen it all, and I view them as the most 'sexually active' of the races next to humans. Since Humans would be a viable choice, perhaps Gnomes/Dwarves would too? Honestly... since most Dwarven females look like men anyways, I wouldn't put it past them. Gnomes? I'm not entirely too sure, since their entire race is still a mystery for the most part. Night Elves, although popularly RPed like this (I think a lot of these people re-rolled Blood Elves for their hawt lovings style of RP) probably aren't that 'naughty'. I view the Night Elves as a very upright and well respected race that has very little time for such fanciful things as 'sex' regardless of their long lasting formerly immortal lives.

What are your thoughts and opinions on this question? Please try to keep a level head in answering this question, as all immature comments will be removed in order to prevent some sort of drama explosion that will likely ensue.

DPS vs. Healing pt. 3

I bring to you another reason why DPS is preferred over Healing.

It's Your Fault!
Ah... if it's one thing healers LOVE to hear it's "Why didn't you heal me?" or even better a flat out "It's the healer's fault we wiped on that boss." Healing is a thankless job most of the time, and all that does it create a depression for the healer in question. Everyone gets patted on the back when a boss is downed, like 'excellent tanking' or 'great job DPS' and very occasionally the healer will be tossed a bone. However, when a tank or somebody dies and a group wipes, who usually gets blamed first? Healers.

Of course it's not the feral druid trying to tank in cat gear (This actually happened to me in a Heroic Blood Furnace, and the tank more or less 'blamed' me/the paladin class and not his horrible selection of tanking gear.), and let's not blame the mage who keeps pulling aggro off the warrior because he didn't take any aggro reducing talents, pew pew pew! In general though, healers get pooped on every single second that you can blame somebody, and once again you can't gauge how good you heal on anything, if everybody lived it doesn't specifically mean that it was a result of your excellent healing, it could've just meant that you and INSANE DPS OMGZ!

Bleh... so the next time you're in a group with a healer, be sure to show some thanks and appreciation, unless you'd rather be short another healer in the future.

Joanadark

These two posts by Joanadark are extremely informative and thought provoking. I'd suggest that any paladins out there, or those interested in the class, give them a good read.

The Path We Follow...

The Light Works in Mysterious Ways

PS. I know she's a warrior, but that doesn't mean she doesn't have informative things to say!

What is Blizzard Cooking?

We all know what I'm talking about here, hopefully. On May 19th some ground breaking news is going to occur at a Korean gaming convention in uhh... Korea, because that's where they have those things. All that anybody knows is that Blizzard is going to drop a bomb, whether this bomb will indeed be ground breaking is entirely up to the fan base I suppose. I'll list things in the order of importance, and which one is most likely to occur.

The Lost Vikings/Blackthorne/etc.
The least important thing Blizzard could announce is some sort of console oriented game based off of some of their old properties like the Lost Vikings. While I would personally be excited to some degree, I doubt the community as a whole could care about such old console games.

World of Warcraft Expansion
Almost the least important announcement Blizzard could make would definitely be an expansion. Like we didn't see this coming. It's not ground breaking, and maybe like... a handful of people would actually explode over the concept of an expansion. These same people probably have WoW listed as the first MMO they've ever played. This seems unlikely however since on Blizzard's main page, they do not have The Burning Crusade listed and count it just as 'World of Warcraft'.

Starcraft: Ghost
It's Korea and they like Starcraft, so... it's a semi-good assumption. Perhaps they've been working in secret on this game and it's prepared to make it's debut on the new generation of Consoles or perhaps as a PC game. It'd be a nice surprise if they pulled this out of the ashes, but I don't think it's what people are hoping for.

Diablo III
This is by no means a bad announcement, in fact it's somewhat expected, and I think a LOT of people would be excited about this. Diablo II was pretty much everyones Blizzard addiction for RPGs prior to WoW. Creating your Hardcore character and then dying losing hours upon hours of work. This is where it was at folks, this was where men were separated from boys. I'd definitely be excited about the prospect of a Diablo III, however there are a few things that would top this list.

Remake
Remember WC1 and WC2? Yeah, those 2D RTS games that sometimes even have pains running on the newer operating systems and such because they're so old? What leads me to believe this is a possibility is that on Blizzard's main page, WC1 & WC2 are highlighted, along with a time line of other Blizzard games on the bottom. Perhaps with each passing day they will highlight new games as they near the day of May 19th (this seems very likely), however, wouldn't it be a blast to play WC1 & WC2 on a WC3 engine with updated graphics, voice overs, cinematics, and all other sorts of neat things? Perhaps they could even retcon some lore things so that it would fit in with WoW perfectly. I think this would be a completely awesome announcement that would catch people off-guard (Hell, even a Starcraft or Diablo 1 remake would be cool too!)

Warcraft 4
So... how can they make WC4 if WoW is there? Fairly simple actually, they just craft up a new world/area and tie the storyline of WC4 into their next WoW Expansion IE Emerald Dream. I'm fairly sure this one won't occur, but it's still a possibility that I don't think ANYBODY expects. It definitely would carry a lot of 'shock' factor, whether people will be happy or simply say "Just Blizzard trying to capitalize on WoW's popularity and make more money." is yet to be determined.

World of Starcraft
This is the one everyone is banking on. There has been information leaks here and there have been April Fools jokes about it on Gamespot that can be seen mentioned here. Also, Blizzard has recently been hiring on people for a "next-gen MMO". If this truly is what they're cooking up, let's hope it's going to be separated from WoW enough that it feels like a different game. I just know that I'm prepared to start my CGF business regardless of the outcome.

Starcraft 2
Now, this is what the Koreans are waiting for. With such a HUGE following to the RTS Starcraft (even over WC3), it's the Korean gamers game of choice. If this is what they're announcing, I'm fully prepared to explode with happiness, and perhaps even lose control of all my bodily functions for a moment. If this is what Blizzard has cooking up, I can hardly see anybody complaining about this. Starcraft also came in at #18 during GameFAQs' Top 10 Games of All Time, and if I remember correctly it was Smash Brothers Melee who ended up putting this game in it's place.

So... which option are you guys banking on? I'd personally be happy with any of the top 3 I've mentioned.

DPS vs. Healing pt. 2

In my last entry, I discussed what life was like upon entering Outland. This entry will get to the core issue, why are all the healers gone? Well, there are a multitude of reasons, but I'm going to discuss the three primary ones that come to mind.

Nerfs
No matter what class it is, somebody is always crying about nerfs. However, it seems like healers always get the hardest, and many classes are unhappy with their talent trees. Priests are a prime example of this, with every single patch something is getting debuffed while everyone else is getting buffed. Eventually, it all adds up, and you're left with a beaten down healer, unable to get a break for the past 4 or 5 patch notes. This essentially puts the healer down in the dumps, who wants to feel outclassed by an overpowered (until 2.1) Holy Paladin on a day to day basis? I certainly wouldn't want to be outpaced by a Hybrid class, especially if my class was considered the MAIN healing class.

Note: The Priest class is anything but gimped, they're still amazing healers and essential to any group, but it seems a lot of the talents downgrade in usefulness as you hit level 70.

DPS is Fun!
Many people DPS because it means they are actively doing something. They're either clicking mouse buttons or tapping hotkeys, and it feels good. You're watching giant numbers flying above monsters' heads and it makes you feel important/awesome/whatever. How often do you see somebody go "OMG! I just crit healed that guy for 6k?! YEA!" Not too often, because chances are, you ended up overhealing anyways, and it's just not big of a deal. However, it works in reverse for DPS, you're chucking frostbolts at the enemy mob, and he's only got 1k health left, you crit for 2k, does it feel any less of an accomplishment? No. The mob is dead, mission accomplished, the same can't be said about overhealing however, and that's where the differences can start being seen.

More often than not the healing class is sitting there, watching health bars, playing whack-a-mole with decursing, and generally just WAITING for somebody to take damage. You get a tanking specced tank, and it becomes even more boring, they're barely taking any damage, and y'know what happens then? Holy fires & smites start getting spammed on mobs, the Priest is jumping around like a loony because he's just that damn bored. It's DEFINITELY like this in the casual players 5-man dungeons and such. It DEFINITELY changes once you start running heroics, and that's where healing feels important, but then again, I think heroics make EVERY class feel like they're playing a vital role. In general however, people just don't want to look at health bars all day and click a single healing button.

Group specs suck for solo
Another reason healers and tanks are rare is because it simply flat out sucks to not get a group. The protection spec Warrior doesn't want to quest and pretend he's a low DPS paladin, he wants to get out there and slash some faces off with his two-handed axe when he's by himself. The Priests wants to melt brains and faces, his +1000 healing doesn't mean anything at all against a legion of demons. Simply put, if you're having issues getting groups, or just have a completely off schedule, you don't want to spec for group play. Since blizzard aims this game towards casuals, that's exactly what you end up with, a lot of DPS specced players because they don't want to log in during their only free time, and find out they can't get a group, or everyone in guild is running heroics/karazhan, and then they are simply left in the dust waiting for 4 other people to come along so they can do something. Either that or they head straight to the Trade Cha- I mean, the LFG Channel, and start spamming it for groups. If you played for a 8 - 12 hours a week would you want to depend on 4 complete strangers in order for you to accomplish something? I sure wouldn't.

So, that in a nutshell, is why don't we have healers anymore? Because their healing trees keep getting nerfed with every patch, it's boring as heck compared to killing things, and you can't do anything by yourself easily. Wow... now that I look at that, being a healer really DOES suck... I think I'm going to go spec Retribution now. Just kidding!

DPS vs. Healing pt. 1

There's an interesting dilemma cropping up throughout the various realms, and my guild is not excluded from this. We have a very hard time getting healing together for things as basic as Karazhan. But first...

A Personal History Lesson:

I rolled a Paladin specifically because our guild needed people to be full time paladins (It wasn't required or anything, I just wanted to help out), I went into the Holy tree assuming it would be like a Shaman, capable of main healing 5-man's with the right gear, instead, I got this freakishly overpowered beast of a healer, in plate, who could tank fairly well. Well, turns out I made a great decision because the guild needed healers in the end-game bad.

I looked at all the priests, druids, and shamans in our guild (many of whom have been around since I took a hiatus around the era of 2.0), and thought to myself "Aren't they healers?" WRONG! They were Shadow Priests, Feral Druids, and Enhancement Shaman. I was completely baffled, my world was turned upside down, before TBC things like this were down right frowned upon and were generally useless in the end-game. I hit outland, and do you know what I saw? Feral tanks, EVERYWHERE... where were all the warriors at? Dual-Wielding and using Two-Handers... nothing made sense anymore. Fast Forward to the present day, and the patches and future patches are trying to smooth things out. I see less Feral druids as of late, many have turned into celery druids. There also seems to be a lot of changes around the corner for shaman and priests as well.

So is Blizzard trying to fix the issue with their nerfs or are they just making the other specs less viable instead of buffing healers?

The Patch is Upon Us

No.... No....... NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Is this how the Broken felt when they became... Broken?

Patch Day is coming, is it Tuesday? Is it next Tuesday? Will they throw us for a loop and make it a weekend? Who knows. There are so many things to be pumped and excited about, but, no matter how much I tried to prepare myself... Illidan said it best "YOU ARE NOT PREPARED!" and it is true. I haven't braved the PTR, so I have absolutely NO clue what life is like with a 40% reduction in Illumination mana returns. I apologize in advance to my guild and others I group with if we wipe because I go OOM. It's going to take some getting used to. As for my Shadow Priest love affairs... their day has come to an end as well. Alas... Illumination, Spiritual Attunement, we had a great time together, and hopefully we can continue making wonderful memories together, even if you did put on an extra 200 lbs.

On a semi-related note: I think Divine Favor should still give 100% mana return, since it's not based off of your crit % (Which is why Illumination was changed) at all as it's a 'guaranteed crit' ability. Yes? No?

I'm torn...

Gladiator's Gavel (Mace)
Main Hand
23-108 Damage (1.6 speed)
40.7 DPS
+24 Stamina
+16 Intellect
Equip: +16 Resilience
Equip: +187 Spell damage and healing

Gladiator's Salvation (Mace)
Main Hand
23-108 Damage (1.6 speed)
40.7 DPS
+24 Stamina
+16 Intellect
Equip: +16 Resilience
Equip: +348 Healing spells

Gladiator's Repreive (Off-hand)
+21Stamina
+13 Intellect
Equip: +14 Resilience
Equip: +31 Healing spells

I can only assume it's the same price cost as the other one-handed main hand weaponry for the two maces, figure out the off-hand based on the other off-hands, if there are any.

However, my issue comes with... do I want this awesome healing mace with no MP5 on it that I can use for PvP, or do I want the awesome shield that I can use as my wannabe holytankadin self (instead of waiting for a shield to drop when we have a tank who doesn't need it)... or maybe I can just tank with the +healing shield from heroic medals... I'll have to check it out. Gear decisions make me cry.

Update: It appears that the mace off the Maiden of Virtue in Karazhan is getting a MAJOR buff to +378 healing, along with MP5, etc. So... it looks like I may be going the route of the Shield after all.

Talent Specs

If anybody knows me, I am a HUGE fan of trying to do the impossible or going the 'odd' way about doing things:

Examples:

- Valkors doesn't have any sort of land mounts, at all.
- Sylvina is trying to be a Holy Tank
- I was dual-wielding as a Warrior back when it was the dumb thing to do (AKA Why not just use a 2-hander?)
- I prefer style of functionality (Ugly epics? Sorry, I'll pass.)
- I wanted to make my Priest a full Shadow Specced Priest, who refused to even heal or learn any healing spells (I figured this would ultimately screw me in grouping, so I decided against it... although, nowadays, I suppose I'd be able to get away with it.)
- I was a protection Paladin on alliance back when 'Paladins can't tank.' was the mentality.
- I was Survival spec before the Hunter changes, and I wanted to be a 'Melee Hunter'.

So... with all of that being said, here are some specs, and I want some opinions. I'm looking more along the lines of people thinking abstractly though, not telling me "Well, you should do this... and this is completely dumb, and why would you want to do this? etc.", and come up with creative solutions to my oddball desires. Also, have any of you ever made a weird spec like the following?

Shaman:

Shaman Tank - I'm trying to turn him into an off-tank, thus I took none of the threat lowering talents. Although, I may pick up the Parry talent and deal with the lack of threat for the benefit of being able to parry attacks.

Hunter:

I wish I was Accident - I may swap 2% to Parry for the Rapid Killing talent. My goal here is to be a support/CC Hunter, but I didn't want to directly copy Accident's build, so I added some of my own flavor. (This is Accident btw.)

Melee Hunter - Here it is folks, the Melee Hunter. I tried to boost my Dodge as much as possible, as well as Stamina, Armor, and other talents. I also tried to avoid any sort of Ranged Crit Proc talents (which Hunters have a TON of) btw.

Priest:

Shadow Inner Fire Priest - I'm toying with the idea of the shields & inner fire... I'm not entirely sure if these talents are worth it all. I'd like some priestly advice.

Shadow Misery Priest - I dropped the armor buffs and improved my DPS. I'm also curious if the improved Wand DMG talent is worth it.

Warrior:

Fury Warrior - Thoughts? Comments? No ultimate goal here, just a dual-wielding fiend, rogue in plate, etc. I was contemplating on swapping rend with thunder clap now because of the tanktitude it can cause, also... it's available in all stances now, right? (Schwack gave me some suggestions to change this around...)

Rogue:

Valkors' Build - Well, here's Valk's official plans. He's always been a little odd, I like to 'AoE' grind and be prepared to wtf pwn multiple mobs in the face, so I have a lot of fancy cooldowns. I've always thought of him as a 'Slice & Dice' rogue, stabbity stabbity with the daggers and watch the little numbers above their heads fly up like a machine gun chain. MoD is for PvP & general sneakiness btw.

Paladin:

Sylvina's 2.1 Spec - Don't worry, I'm still Holy. But I made a few extra changes, and they were even nice enough to give me an extra talent point to play with. yay.

Alliance Tankanub - This is the talent spec I was playing around with if I ever went back to play my level 48ish Alliance Paladin. (Albriech is my Alliance Paladin, btw.)

Support Nub - Most retribution paladins focus solely on DPS, and cry about their DPS, etc. I decided to try and make a 'Support' Paladin whose melee based attacks and buffs would help the team instead of his own DPS & Solo/PvP abilities.

SCVs4hire

So, Tazingo and I were talking, and after getting a lot of spam from CGFs, I decided to go squat on SCVs4hire.com (Starcraft reference for the clueless.)

I think I'm going to make a mirror/parody site of peons4hire (CGF Website, don't go there or they'll H@X your account! :o ). Either that or, I'll get a pile of cash from a CGF company when World of Starcraft does come out.

Signature

This is by far one of my favorite signatures...

DPS ≠ Melee

I'm getting mixed messages from Paladins here. So... let me sum it up for everyone. DPS DOES NOT MEAN THE SAME AS MELEE! RETRIBUTION PALADINS WILL NEVER DPS! However, Blizzard DOES want Paladins to Melee and be on the front lines, as opposed to hanging out with the clothies.

Yes, yes, this is coming from the Holy paladin who doesn't know aaaaaannyyyyyything about being a Ret Paladin. But, plain and simple Paladins don't DPS, and they never did. They did however melee with the best of them IE. Uther & Arthas (Although Arthas was kind of overpowered in the human campaign with his bubble).

Why can't a Retribution paladin support his team with melee based attacks, applying buffs and debuffs? Why can't a Ret pally have some sort of melee based healing factor/ability that isn't just a seal? Perhaps an aura/ability/talent that gives raid/party members 50% of the buff of your seals when it procs. (This may apply only to Light/Wisdom).

Here is an example of a support ret paladin in 2.1 (PTR), it's not exactly the best thing, but it's an idea of where I'm going with this: Support Nub

As for a Paladin's DPS, we wtfpwn Undead better than any other class out there, because of skills like Holy Wrath, Turn Undead, & Exorcism. Which is highly in tune with what the Paladin is/has been in the Warcraft universe & lore.