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Pimp My Profile: Pre-Heroic Protection Paladin


Welcome to the first edition of our new twice-monthly column, Pimp My Profile. Readers submit their Armory profile to us and every two weeks we pick one to review. We provide a Gear Check, Talent Tune Up, AddOn/Macro recommendations and more to help you reach your goals in the game.

For the inaugural column, I asked my long time friend Jon to submit his new Paladin for da pimpage. He had recently shelved his Warrior in favor or leveling a new Paladin to 70 to be the main tank for our casual group. Having played the class for only two months, he had a few questions and concerns. Here is what he had to say:

"I'm highly aware of needing to obtain the "uncrittable" defense numbers so far in order to get a defense anywhere near 490 I've found that I have to sacrifice too much spell damage which eats into my ability to hold agro. I abandoned a 63 warrior in favor of my Pally tank and the teary eyed joy that comes with being able generate lots of agro quickly on multiple mobs. Big spell damage is essential to my ability to tank for my trigger happy friends whose 5 man instance approach is more akin to "Who's Line Is It Anyway" rather than the production of Shakespeare most people reading this think their guild regularly produces."

Jon's goals as a new level 70 Protection Paladin on the verge of tanking Heroics are:
  1. To attain uncrushability by equipping more avoidance gear (+Dodge,+Parry or +Block equipment)
  2. Regain his threat generation through +Spell damage
  3. Retaining his uncrittable status by keeping his Defense at least at 490
Let's look at Jon's current set up and what he, or any pre-Heroic L70 Protection Paladin, can do to achieve those goals.

Continue reading Pimp My Profile: Pre-Heroic Protection Paladin

A small defense skill change in 2.4 could herald larger things

Bear tank approves of no more crushing blows.It seems like a small change, but it could be the herald of something larger. It's a change to the way the defense skill is described in-game in patch 2.4, as reported by World of Raids. I'll let them describe it:

* Old value: Higher defense makes you harder to hit and makes monsters less likely to land a crushing blow.

* New value: Higher defense improves your chance to dodge, parry, and block attacks, makes you harder to hit, and makes monsters less likely to land a critical strike against you.

So what does this mean? They've added things that have always been part of the skill, but have not been explicitly mentioned on the defense tab before, but what's most intriguing is what they've taken away.

I'll explain after the jump.

Continue reading A small defense skill change in 2.4 could herald larger things

Avoidance: do you have enough?

By way of Blessing of Kings (why are all the good blogs about paladins?), here's a nifty macro to tell you if you have enough avoidance, as a paladin tank. How much is "enough"? Basically, enough to ensure that you avoid all crushing blows. If you pump up your dodge, block, and parry, you can push crushing blows entirely off the attack table, which goes a long way towards reducing the spikiness of incoming damage. More predictable damage = easier healing = fewer deaths. So let's see that macro:

/script DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME:AddMessage("Need 102.4 combined avoidance. Currently at:",0.8,0.8,1)
/script DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME:AddMessage(GetDodgeChance()+GetBlockChance() + GetParryChance() +5+(GetCombatRatingBonus(CR_DEFENSE_SKILL) + 20)*0.04,1,0.5,0)


A couple caveats: in "(CR_DEFENSE_SKILL) + 20)", the "20" represents your defense from the Anticipation talent. Adjust accordingly. Also, if you want Holy Shield to be taken into account, you have to turn it on first. This macro was made by Raymond of Nazjatar, so all props to him. I love math.

An overview of 2.1 Hunter pet changes

Just in time for the impending release of 2.1 on the live realms. Petopia has created a page with everything hunters need to know about pet changes in the new patch.

We already reported about a few of the new pets to be found, including a cool purple tallstrider, but there's at least one more out there called the Skettis Kaliri, probably found in the Arrakoa capital, a new quest area. In addition, there's those two new pet skills, Avoidance (which should help with DPS pets in raids and instances), and Cobra Reflexes, which increases attack speed at the cost of damage per attack. In tests, Petopia says it does increase DPS overall, but it remains to be seen how it will work on the live realms. Both skills should be trainable at the pet trainer (although that may be only for the test realm, again not sure).

If you're a hunter (or just want to know what you might be facing in the high level battlegrounds-- I would hate to get beat up by a purple dodo), Petopia's page is definitely worth a look before the patch drops as a great overall view of what's happening in petland.


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