{ R E T P A L L Y }

Our guild sells the Pureblood Fire Hawk mount off heroic Ragnaros every week, but some weeks we can't secure a buyer.

So this happens instead:



To promote world PVP on our server, our guild sponsored a huge event in Gurubashi Arena. All Horde and Alliance players were invited to participate in a no-rules FFA fight over the chest in the center of the arena. Whoever could successfully loot the trinket from the chest won the mount/title. Simple as that.

This was the 2nd Fire Hawk PVP event we held. Roughly 50-60 people were actually fighting in the arena, but there was at least 50 more people watching from mounts and fighting in the stands. It was a great turnout.

The chest is very difficult to loot with so many people fighting over it, but that is the idea. We do this to foster world PVP but we also want a bit of entertainment.

--

A few details:

- If an Alliance player won, they were welcome to faction switch -or- gift/sell their mount to a Horde player instead.

- To get as many people as possible, we spent a couple days advertising the event on the realm forums and in tradechat.

- If the winner already had the trinket achievement, we required a screenshot.

- Groups were allowed. Everything was allowed. There were zero rules and no restrictions on who could participate. We wanted this to be as fun as possible.

--

Next time I'll die and film in ghostform so I can get closer to the action. It was hard to get close without hitting AOE or being targeted. :P

The ogre in the video is our GM/raid leader Grommash. To keep the fight going longer, he went blood and helped AOE the chest with our friend healing him lol. Next time we may try to actively kill people to make it more of a challenge. I hope we do, but it's up to Grom. :P

This is over 2 months old lol.
I don't pay much attention to LJ these days. =/

Uggh I have so much material to post but none of it is finished and I am laaaaaazyyyyyyy~

Most of it will be obsolete after the patch anyway so it's not even worth posting. I'll have to modify the crap out of these PVE and PVP ret guides but whatever.

All these damn Hyjal druids are still running around building their feel-good tree camp and Rag is already dead. Damn lazy hippies lol.

( Honestly all the fights are a lot of fun. )

Those hippie druid questhubs are awesome for ganking though lol. Speaking of, Last Word/Selfless Healer/Eternal Glory spec with the WoG glyph and the crit gear = super fun happytime lols.

Firelands is upon us and it's time to look at all the paladin changes pertaining to ret.

Probably the most notable change was the buff to Seal of Righteousness and Seals of Command.

Seal of Righteousness: Fills the Paladin with holy spirit for 30 min, granting each melee attack X additional Holy damage. Only one Seal can be active on the Paladin at any one time.

The change doesn't show up on the tooltip but SoR can now proc off all melee abilities, not just single-target abilities. This means AOE abilities like Divine Storm and Hammer of the Righteous can proc this seal. In addition, SoR damage can now crit.



Seals of Command: Your Seal of Righteousness, Seal of Truth, and Seal of Justice now also deal 7% weapon damage when triggered. In addition, your Seal of Righteousness now hits all enemy targets within melee range.

The proc change and crit chance on SoR combined with this talent will be a big boost to our AOE DPS. Previously Seals of Command would only cleave 2 additional targets.



Inquiry of Faith: Increases the periodic damage done by your Seal of Truth by 30%, and the duration of your Inquisition by 200%.

Previously, without 4pc T11, the highest uptime you could get with a 3HP Inquisition was 30sec. Now it will last 36sec with 3HP. This is to help ease rets off the current 4pc which increases Inquisition to 40sec. DPS increase!



Repentance: Range increased to 30yds, up from 25yds.

It's about time. Now if only Repentance wasn't one of the worst CCs in the game...



Selfless Healer: Reduces the cooldown of Word of Glory by 10 sec. In addition, when you heal others with your Word of Glory, it increases the effectiveness of the heal by 50% and increases your damage done by 4% per charge of Holy Power for 10 sec.

This is slight buff to our PVP utility. It takes roughly 12-13sec to generate 3HP in PVP so, barring Divine Purpose and Eternal Glory procs, it will almost feel like we have our old no-cooldown WoG back. In addition our Selfless Healer damage buff is no longer dispellable (a shame really... it was a nice trash buff).

Trouble is, since healing is the only thing that makes us truly unique from other melee classes (aside from having no snare lololol), we will likely be pushed into the role of off-healers again.



All healing spells and abilities will have their critical effects increased by 200%, up from 150%.

This means heals will crit for 50% more than they do right now. For ret paladins it means our healing will be more powerful overall, especially combined with the Selfless Healer change.

Many of the top end PVP rets are stacking crit instead of mastery and switching to the "Last Word build." Last Word is a second tier Holy talent which increases the critical effect of WoG on targets below 35% health. As said, healing is our strongest utility in PVP so augmenting it makes sense. Personally I'm not fond of this build but if it's very strong I'll happily switch. Our usefulness in PVP is so limited right now lol.


Get ready to WoG it up. D:

With a new raid comes new gear! Paladin T12 not only echoes our most famous tier, but it's much better itemized than T11.

"Best in slot" is much less cut-and-dry than it was in previous tiers thanks to Reforging. Keep this in mind when referencing this list.

Sidegrades are other acceptable gear choices you can make depending on availability and your own stat balance.


Battleplate of Immolation: Best in Slot

(Trust me, you want to wear a tabard with this lol)
Helm: Immolation Helmet -- [heroic]

Legs: Immolation Legplates -- [heroic]

Shoulders: Immolation Pauldrons -- [heroic]

Gloves: Immolation Gauntlets -- [heroic]

Chest: Breastplate of Shifting Visions -- [heroic]
Sidegrades: Immolation Battleplate


Your offpiece should be the mastery chest. The T12 chest has haste and a massive chunk of expertise which you can make up elsewhere. Bad news for you paladin fashionistas: no robe. :(

The BiS choices below assume your tier offpiece is the chest.


Feet: Arachnaflame Treads -- [heroic]

Waist: Cinch of the Flaming Ember -- [heroic]

Cloak: Bladed Flamewrath Cover -- [heroic]

Wrist: Gigantiform Bracers -- [heroic]
Sidegrades: Earthcrack Bracers

Neck: Stoneheart Choker -- [heroic]
Sidegrades: Necklace of Fetishes

Ring 1: Obsidian Signet of the Avengers

Ring 2: Alysrazor's Band -- [heroic]
Sidegrades: Serrated Brimstone Signet

Relic: Relic of the Elemental Lords -- [heroic]



Trinkets
There are only 3 possible trinket upgrades for us in 4.2.

1.) Essence of the Eternal Flame -- [heroic]
+ 383 Mastery (heroic: +433 Mastery)
On Use: Increases your Strength by 1277 (heroic: 1441) for 15 sec. (1 Min Cooldown)

This is the Firelands version of Impatience of Youth. With a 1min cooldown this trinket blows IoY out of the water and is possibly our best trinket upgrade in this tier. Bought from the Avengers of Hyjal at Revered reputation for 400g.


2.)Apparatus of Khaz'goroth -- [heroic]
+ 383 Strength (heroic: +433 Strength)

Equip: Your melee critical strikes grant Titanic Power, allowing you to power this device. Titanic Power stacks up to 5 times and lasts 30 sec.

On Use: Consume all Titanic Power to increase your critical strike rating, haste rating, or mastery rating by 306 (heroic: 345) per Titanic Power accumulated, lasting 15 sec. The apparatus will always choose the highest of those three ratings. (2 Min Cooldown)

Holy shit this trinket. It's like the love child of Deathbringer's Will and Fury of Angerforge. Bizarre as it is, the static strength and ability to increase our mastery rating by 1530 (heroic: 1725) for 15sec could prove very strong if lined up with wings and Zeal.


3.) Vessel of Acceleration -- [heroic]
+ 406 Strength (heroic: +458 Strength)
Equip Grants 77 (heroic: 87) critical strike rating for 20 sec each time you deal a melee critical strike, stacking up to 5 times.

This trinket isn't bad but it's not great either. We like crit but it's not at the top of our list.



Weapons
Sulfuras is the clear winner here.

2H Mace: Sulfuras, The Extinguished Hand -- [heroic]

2H Sword: Zoid's Firelit Greatsword -- [heroic]

2H Axe: Skullstealer Greataxe -- [heroic]



Set Bonuses
(2)Set: Your Crusader Strike deals 15% additional damage as Fire damage over 4sec.

(4)Set: Increases the duration of your Zealotry ability by 15sec.


The 2pc allows CS to apply a dot to your target so it's basically free damage. You definitely want that.

The 4pc however completely changes our cooldown rotation. Zealotry will last 35sec instead of 20 but you will still pair it with Avenging Wrath for maximum effect. What will change is your timing.


Do you pop Zeal 15sec before AW?
-OR-
Do you pop AW with Zeal but let Zeal trail off for 15sec?

Truthfully I have no idea. Hopefully EJ updates its ret rotation with a definitive answer soon.

The Rapture did not prevent Blizzcon tickets from being sold out as I had hoped...

DAMN.

Retribution
-Selfless Healer now also reduces the cooldown of Word of Glory by 5/10 sec.

Ffffffffffffffffffffyes

I knew they would probably do something like this eventually. I'm doing okay without WoG in PVP (unrated anyway), I just have to work a lot harder. A LOT harder. It's sort of.. not fun at all lol but I can still do it.

If this version of SH goes live we'll probably take Eternal Glory again for PVP. Not sure what I would give up to take SH... I guess 2 points out of AoW but I love hitting people with an Inq'd Exorcism. Ouchies. Maybe 1 point out of Acts.. 1 out of AoW? Idk we'll see lol.

This is the PTR so nothing is final of course but I have a feeling this won't need much tweaking. I'd still prefer a SNARE but.. well, this is better than nothing lol.

Better than another nerf!

So 4.1 has come and gone and rets are still trying to figure out what to do with themselves now that we can't heal worth diddly in PVP. Our job is damage, sure, but there are so many ways to completely negate that damage... Too many in fact.

However, we may be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel very soon. Between unannounced changes in 4.1 and recently announced 4.2 PTR notes, we're looking at some interesting changes:


Divine Protection (live)
- Can no longer be dispelled.

Holy Radiance (live)
- Can no longer be dispelled.

Repentance (4.2 PTR)
- Now has a 30yd range, up from 20yd.

Avenging Wrath (4.2 PTR)
- Can no longer be dispelled.


These changes, though small, are going to have a huge impact on us in PVP. Previously spells like Divine Protection and Radiance were used as filler buffs in arena to protect our wings from being dispelled for a few precious seconds. But now that those cannot be dispelled, and the prospect of wings being completely undispellable... just wow. Dispel protection? For paladins? I never thought I'd see the day, I really didn't.

Now that we can't heal, our damage needs to be more reliable and for that to happen we desperately needed dispel protection on our most important damage dealing cooldown: Avenging Wrath.

Now you might think, if wings isn't dispellable anymore they'll HAVE to nerf Hammer of Wrath damage to compensate. We can't have paladins flinging 25-30k hammer crits 3 times in 20 seconds! HoW nerf will interfere with my PVE damage!

BUT... quite honestly, it is very easy to negate our damage in PVP even without dispels. Disarms and silences can render both Zealotry and wings useless. It's just a matter of disarming and silencing us, things many classes can do.

Thus, if Blizzard is thinking straight (you never know.. really lol) then our damage doesn't need to be nerfed at all with this change. It would simply raise the skillcap required to defeat an experienced ret paladin. Veteran PVPers will survive, casual BG heroes may suffer... but anything that prevents dispel spam from being a legitimate strategy VS an entire class is a good thing imo.

Speaking of dispel spam, on the latest 4.2 PTR mages got a nasty surprise:


Mage
- Spellsteal now has a 6sec cooldown.


Given Blizz's stance on offensive dispels in Cata a Spellsteal nerf was a long time coming. This has no PVE consequences as wasting multiple GCDs on Spellsteal is just bad play in the current tier with the exception of Arcanotron. Even then, mages were abusing the Omnitron fight by purposely triggering the stacks so they could steal it as a dps increase. Whether Blizz intended this or not, it's a little unfair to the rest of the dps. It's not like mages need help with their dps/damage lol. They will survive with a 6sec Spellsteal.

So Blizz took back the Selfless Healer "buff" after EJ threw a bunch of math at them proving it was a PVE buff and something rets would be required to utilize in raids. Ultimately such a change would be completely backwards from Blizz's previous statements where we're supposed to use our HP on finishers, not WoG.

How such a change even made it to the PTR is beyond me. Really? Really... I'm godawful at math and even I could've told them "hey this looks like a thinly veiled buff to my raid damage!"

So we're back to square one, which is still better than square two where we would have to weave arbitrary WoGs into our rotation.

Our PVE role is safe but we're still going to be majorly gimped in PVP. Meanwhile frost mages and DKs continue to be buffed... Disappointing considering both those classes are already in a great spot on live. I only wish the devs would pay a fraction of that attention to paladins. We're pretty fine in PVE but none of our 3 specs will be PVP viable after this patch unless we get something seriously awesome in the next couple weeks. My bet? Rolling a frost mage and leveling my DK in preparation.

Patch 4.1 -- Selfless Healer: The damage bonus from this talent now has a 30 sec duration instead of 10 sec

In response to the monumental walls of justified QQ about the WoG nerf, Blizz buffed the talent we've been begging them to nerf in lieu of WoG itself. Now instead of a 12% damage increase for 10sec after using WoG, we get a 12% damage increase for 30sec.

If this goes live it will be a noticeable PVE buff, meaning it will be mandatory in PVE builds. Honestly I find it insulting that Blizz thinks ret players want another passive damage buff to juggle. Was Inquisition not annoying enough? Are passive buffs the new "fun thing" in raids nowadays? I must've missed that memo!

So to utilize Selfless Healer in PVE build, we'd have to toss a 3pt WoG every 30 seconds. We're spending 3HP on WoG + 3HP on Inq... but the whole point of the WoG nerf was to force us to use more HP on TVs... In a raid environment we're getting 3HP every 10ish seconds with no DP procs. Considering we have to spend 3HP on Inq AND 3HP on Selfless Healer, that doesn't leave us very many TV opportunities outside of RNG procs.

SENSE GOES WHERE.

PVE paladins must take Selfless Healer.



Where does this leave Selfless Healer in PVP? It was originally a PVP talent... now with the WoG nerf, I guess it HAS to be a PVE talent. In arena, the ret gets focused down. We're glass canons with no snare, no undispellable CCs, and next to no defenses (ahh I fondly remember when bubble was more than just a second trinket.. not anymore!). The only thing that keeps us in line with other melee specs is our heals. We are AWESOME off healers. While other melee have better CCs and actual snares to protect/support their partners, we simply heal ours. That's what paladins do: HEAL.

Now they don't want us to heal so much (despite Selfless Healer being introduced SPECIFICALLY for healing)... I can accept this new direction IF they gave us something to keep us on par with other melee specs. We NEED a snare, we NEED dodge/parry compensation on Crusader Strike, and we NEED more dispel protection.

Every class has sooo many CCs/defenses now that it's extremely easy to negate both our offensive cooldowns -and- our defensive cooldowns. Mindless and instant offensive dispel spam is simply too crippling versus us.

-All- casters are getting buffed (yet again - surprise?) in 4.1, namely frost mages, the most highly represented caster in arena for the past several seasons. Meanwhile ret paladins, sitting at a pitiful 2% total representation across all brackets, are getting destroyed with the WoG nerf (and to a lesser extent the Sacred Shield nerf).

If holy and prot was more viable in high end arena we could talk, but even our other specs fall far short of every other class/spec.

Anyway it's pretty clear Blizz has no idea what to do with ret in both PVE in PVP (it's been what, almost 7 years?)... and it's pretty clear they don't care either.

( IT'S THAT TIME OF WEEK AGAIN (screenshots x6) )


We're now officially #1 on the server, 9/13 hardmodes. Some sites recorded us as top guild last week for Al'akir although we were technically tied 8/13 with the previous top guild. NO MORE TIE.

Considering we're moreorless a ragtag group of friends at this point I think we've come very far. For years through vanilla and each expansion, CH was always second or third because we (well they, I didn't join till wrath lol) raided notably less often and less seriously than other guilds on the server. Some people wanted to take it more seriously but most found the fun was in the challenge, not the race. That's still true now. We don't min-max, we don't bring in the optimal classes for each fight, we're not obsessed with BiS or meters. Hell we don't even use masterloot - gear is always free rolls lol. We each play the class/spec we enjoy and together we make our little 10man work. I'm so proud of what we've accomplished in Cataclysm.

This came at a half funny, half sad cost. The former top guild, our faction rivals since TBC, quit the 25man bracket this week due to a wide variety of reasons. It boiled down to a lack of continued hardcore progression many were used to in the previous expansions. They've always had trouble keeping raiders but it's all too much work now. To quote them they're "retiring" to 10mans with a more relaxed raiding schedule, similar to ours.

It's sort of funny because I always wanted to beat them at progression but sad because they're unhappy about quitting 25m. They were no Vis Maior but they were close, and it's weird to see them step down after so long. I hope they enjoy 10mans as much as we have this expansion, and who knows! There's still plenty of time for us and them to kill everything before Firelands.

My only regret is, I have to re-enchant my axe with Landslide later this week because 2h weapons refuse to drop for us. T_______T Nooo my crystalssss...

I took my netherstorm transporter today and found a lvl80 alliance DK afk outside the inn. As per usual I hop on the inn roof to kill him from a safe distance from the guards. He dies, woo honor.

Just then an 85 dwarf warrior flies up while I'm still in combat with the guards below. He starts attacking me before brostorming off the roof like a noob, emoting at me all the way. I get out of combat and fly out of reach. I only took the transporter so I could do my daily MGT run after all, and the Area 52 guards are NOT worth dealing with if I can help it lol. So I fly away dreaming of a white chocobo mount.

Dwarf warrior is not satisfied with my departure. He gets on his lvl26 horde hunter to call me out, saying I was a pansy for not 1v1'ing him.

I say hey bro, I helped you out the other day. I remember your name. Don't you remember me?

Confused, he starts asking specifics.

I say bro, BRO, you asked me about this thing the other day. You know, that thing. I said yeah bro it's THIS and you were like thanks bro!

More confused, he seems unable to contradict me.

I ask is this how you're gonna treat me now?? After all my help! I THOUGHT WE WERE BROS, BRO!

Now he's REALLY confused but promptly apologizes, "shit man I musta forgot, im sorry we're cool peace out"


I've never seen this person in my life.


...Lobster has Jedi mind powers. /flex
And Jedi has to be capitalized otherwise spellcheck gets mad, that's awesome lol

This story is of a naughty tank and the group who refused to take a dungeon debuff.

I don't usually have 5man stories because I don't usually do 5mans! But one of my guildies needed the daily and I could always use more valor points, so 4 of us queued. All we needed was a tank.

( We got the mighty Hansoom.* )

It's polite to let pugs do their job to the best of their ability. I'm more than happy to hold back if it will help them.

BUT if they think it's okay to cry when things don't go their way and then frivolously waste other peoples' time as way to 'get back' at the rest of the group? Hell naw. If you're unhappy with a pug you're free to leave!.. or we can MAKE you leave. :D This is also why I don't do achievements in pugs lol.

Are you wondering how good ret is now after 4.0.6?

Compared to the last 2 months of being obsolete in every facet of gameplay, we're freaking awesome now.

Lobster is feeling like his old self again. Before 4.0.6 my dps was consistently low on every fight and my damage was pitiful in pvp unless I got the jump on someone and the stars aligned. It was really depressing signing on to my beloved pally every raid night and watching him compete with the bear and blood DK on the dps charts. :(

When the patch hit I reforged all mastery. Since 4.0 mastery has been the worst stat for rets. Now, it's AMAZING. A day after the patch I was world second top ret dps on 10man Cho'gall, and world fifth on 10man heroic Atramedes! That night my UI was broken and I couldn't see most of the fights because I had a giant Bartender bar in my face too... otherwise I might have been #1!

In pvp I hit like a truck. :D
Ohhh how I missed hitting people like a truck. <3

Just like your pve gear, you'll want to reforge everything in your pvp set to mastery. There are a few honor items with expertise on them; a curious stat for pvpers. However I've noticed some reports stressing the need for at least SOME expertise in pvp now. It's still not a major stat by any means so just reforge it. At this point, expertise is probably worth more than haste.

The thing about ret pvp is, yeah we can get someone really low really fast, but that's not a guarantee they'll die. Nowadays everyone has so many damn defensive cooldowns, many of which are automatic like a mage's Reactive Barrier and certain resto druid passives. As pallies we can't really complain because for a long time we were the undisputed kings of not dying. :P

Speaking of not dying, Sacred Shield has saved my ass more than once already. I haven't been able to control test it VS dispells (I'm pretty sure it cannot be dispelled however some people say it can?) but it's pretty nice to have regardless.

Divine Protection is the paladin equivalent to Barkskin except we can't use it while stunned (not fair imo). In pve it's really important to use the Glyph of Divine Protection, which reduces magical damage against you by 40% instead of 20% physical/20% magical protection. If you're taking physical damage in a pve fight you're either doing something wrong or you're tanking Chimaeron/Nefarion adds (in which case please unglyph it lol).

In pvp I don't use the Divine Protection glyph. This is because even though I'm in plate, rogues, warriors, and ferals still hit me pretty hard. Mages and locks hit hard too but most of the time I can find some LoS to protect myself. There's no LoSing a Shadowstep rogue. :( The glyph is mostly pointless because your defense against casters can be dispelled by casters... dumb. =/

Although Righteous Fury can no longer be dispelled, I still cruise around with it in pvp because sometimes someone will waste a dispel or two trying to buff strip me. Lol.

I don't have a lot of pvp gear yet because for the past 2 months I was regrettably holy (hissssssss) and wasn't sure when or if they'd ever fix ret. Even running around in my pve gear I'm still decently hard to kill unless I'm being focused, which is good. Reports suggest your damage output will be roughly the same in pvp gear as in pve gear so we'll see.

2k kills away from my "of the Horde" title lol. Before 4.0.6 I was 4k away.. so in the last couple days I've farmed 2k kills. XD Hooray for fun ret!

So after checking tonight's WoL:

World Rank #2 for 10man Cho'gal: Lobster
World Rank #5 for 10man heroic Atramedes: Lobster

Ret's feelin' pretty good! XD

It's always a good idea to take a look at The Retribution Concordance over on ElitistJerks but if you can't be bothered, here are some changes:


MASTERY: Hand of Light Change

Our new mastery converts a percentage of our Crusader Strike, Templar's Verdict, and Divine Storm damage into additional holy damage. This is really good and probably the best change to ret thus far. It's about time our melee attacks hit for something worthwhile.


TALENT: Divine Purpose Change

Our old mastery has replaced our talent Divine Purpose. Divine Purpose now grants you a 7/15% chance to use one of your HP abilities as if you had 3HP to spend. Like old Divine Purpose, it can proc off the laundry list of our abilities.

However the talent is deceiving. While all of those abilities can proc Divine Purpose, realistically you'll only get 2-3 chances per CS in a single target rotation to proc anything. Combined with the low proc rate of Art of War, we still rely too much on RNG to do anything interesting with our rotation.


TALENT: Sacred Shield

If you played in WotLK you may remember the lvl80 paladin ability Sacred Shield, which paladins used to constantly shield themselves or their target from damage. It was removed with 4.0. With 4.0.6, it was given back to Ret paladins in the form of a talent.

Whenever you are brought down below 35% health, Sacred Shield will automatically proc and absorb X amount of damage. While shielded, heals are increased on you by 20%. It can proc when stunned or feared, and it cannot be dispelled. This is obviously a mandatory talent for both PVE and PVP.


Seal Procs:

Our seals can now proc off all our major abilities instead of just on autoattacks. This means if we have Seal of Truth on, we can start stacking Censure from a distance with Judgement. It makes Censure stacking MUCH faster because instead of taking between 9-12 seconds to get to 5 stacks, it now takes 3-5 seconds. This also lets us keep the stacks up while not in melee range. It's just plain awesome for PVE and PVP.

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ROTATION:

Crusader Strike got a nice damage increase. However, with the changes to Retribution talents and mastery, Crusader Strike is now our ONLY Holy Power generating ability. This makes our rotation feel very slow as we're always waiting for CS to come off cooldown.


New Single Target Rotation:
Inq > CS > TV > HoW > Exo > J > HW > Cons

Single Target Rotation with Exorcism Glyph/fighting Undead or Demons:
Inq > CS > TV > Exo > HoW > J > HW > Cons


Generally speaking you're going to have 1-2 filler abilities between each CS. The time between CS should be used to refresh Inq, fire off a TV, or hit an AoW Exorcism proc. If all of those abilities are unavailable, fall back to hitting HoW, Judgement, or Holy Wrath.

Exorcism and Hammer of Wrath take a back seat to Crusader Strike and Templar's Verdict now. This is because CS and TV do both physical and magical damage thanks to our mastery. Exorcism is purely magic damage and HoW is purely physical damage and they do not benefit from mastery at all.

I'm glad about this change. It always bothered me that our main special attack, TV, wasn't as powerful as Exo and HoW, which are 2 baseline paladin abilities. Now our special attack is really special!


AOE Rotation (3+ targets):
Inq > DS > Cons > HW > J > Exo > HoW > TV

In AOE situations you have to replace Crusader Strike with Divine Storm. Although Divine Storm got a damage buff, it no longer has a chance to grant HP. Something tells me they didn't think this through when making the Ret changes...

With 3+ targets you want to hit Cons before HW. Combined with DS this rotation can be a mana drain so you'll want to hit Judgement on cooldown. TV is last on the list because you won't be generating HP with DS, and if you must use CS at some point you'll want to use the HP to keep Inquisition up because it augments Cons and HW damage.

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COOLDOWNS:

Everybody loves cooldowns! Especially rets! With the change to Holy Power generation Zealotry is now very very valuable. Your cooldown priorities should look like this:

Pop Guardian of the Ancient Kings to give you a strength buff. After 10 seconds, use Avenging Wrath and Zealotry together. AW and Zeal both last 20 seconds. Your Guardian lasts 30 seconds. Delaying AW and Zeal by 10 seconds ensures you have a fully stacked strength buff active for the entirety of AW and Zeal.

Ideally you want to use this cooldown combo under the effects of Bloodlust/Heroism, however delaying your cooldowns just to wait for lust is an overall DPS loss. If you don't know when lust is coming, just use them as you see fit.


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STAT WEIGHTS:

In 4.0 mastery was our worst stat. In 4.0.6 it's arguably our best as it augments our 2 major abilities, CS and TV. Your stat stacking should look something like this:

Strength > Hit/Expertise to cap > Mastery > Crit > Haste

Haste is now our worst stat even with the talent Sanctity of Battle. Haste is just too wonky right now, and even though it's supposed to lower the cooldown of our CS and DS abilities, it takes SO MUCH to even make a dent in it. At this point you'll get a lot more bang for your buck by stacking mastery and crit.

When it comes to Hit/Expertise, always reforge - never gem.

Once you're hit/exp capped, reforge any remaining haste on your gear to mastery. I generally leave crit alone and only reforge for it when the item already has mastery on it.

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GEMMING:

DPS meta gems got fixed! We can now use Chaotic Shadowspirit Diamond because it requires more red gems now. Blue gems are lame, don't use them except to activate this meta and to activate a +20 strength bonus (in which case you'd want a +20str/+20 other stat gem).

Our best-in-slot meta is the new Reverberating Shadowspirit Diamond which gives you +54 strength and +3% critical strike damage. It has a requirement of 3 red gems to activate. Awesome gem is awesome. The only downside is it's a random world drop and thus will be very rare for a few weeks.

All your other sockets should still be Bold Inferno Rubies for the most part, except where you have a +20 strength socket bonus.

How's RET workin' out for y'all?

My guild shrunk to a 10man team for Cata and we've been barreling through Bastion of Twilight and Blackwing Descent for a couple weeks now. We've got all the BWD server firsts except Maloriak and hopefully we'll get Nefarian after Christmas.

Right now I'm the ONLY MELEE in my 10man. Well, we bring in a rogue sometimes but consistently I'm the only melee in the core group.

Now, I'm not a pure dps like a warrior or a hunter... I'm a ret pally.

A HYBRID.

And as a hybrid, I have to do 2 jobs:
1.) DPS my heart out without dying
2.) heal/protect my teammates as needed without dying

So not only am I the only melee most of the time, but I'm also the only hybrid in the group able to max out my hybrid potential 100% of the time (our druid is 4tank).

While I love being so versatile, my dps suffers because I'm not using my HP to dps. Sometimes I watch my raid frames more closely than my rotation. I even save Zealotry to heal during heavy damage phases lol. My ret spec picks up Eternal Glory and Selfless Healer specifically so I can WoG heal better. Sometimes I get 50k+ WoG crits on others.

This puts me in a weird spot. I want to DPS like I'm supposed to but I need to support my raid. I know they appreciate the versatility but sometimes better DPS is the best remedy for a troublesome fight. I know if my spec were dedicated to pure dps I'd do better but then I wouldn't heal as well. Augh!

My dps is inadequate. I SHOULD fix it, I want to, but I can't. It's like, okay, I have a priest alt for healing. Why am I healing so much on my dps char? D:

I'm sure things will be easier once we're all in something better than heroic blues and badge gear. For now I don't look at the dps meters anymore because it makes me feel awful lol. I'm not used to being on the bottom. In Wrath I was always close to the top... D:

But it begs the question, is this how my dps is going to be with every new content patch? When the healers are better geared will they bring in a stronger pure dps because they don't need the versatility? My group is made of friends so I know they'd never sit me, but sometimes I feel bad because maybe if they did, they'd do better. =/

So yeah, this is my ret experience so far in Cata lol. It's fun seeing new content but at the same time I'm all kinds of insecure about my class/spec. :(

Don't ask me about ret pvp... I specced holy because ret is SO PITIFUL right now. Breaks my heart... Lobster was made to kill, not heal! :(

Blue Post:
"We've been toying with a change to Divine Storm to make it more like Fan of Knives. Specifically, you could use it whenever you want, for mana, but it would share a cooldown with Crusader Strike. It would have nothing to do with Holy Power (unless Divine Purpose still applied). The idea would be that sometimes you're okay giving up the single target rotation of Crusader Strike -> Templar's Verdict in return for being able to use an AE attack every 4.5 to 3 sec. It's too early yet to know if this design will work out.

"Divine Storm has a great visual and many long-time Ret paladins have a soft spot for it, so we'd like to get it back to more common use."

OMG YAY I miss Divine Storm SO MUCH. There's NOTHING visually special about Templar's Verdict even though it's supposed to be our "signature" move for choosing Retribution. How boring is that? I miss my sparkle hammers. :(

The idea of having a FoK is interesting. Wouldn't it be cool if it applied a Daze effect or some kind of debuff like rogue FoK does?

IMO take the healing component off DS completely (it didn't do much to begin with) then let it apply a debuff. All the other classes have useful debuffs... where's ours? SoT? Why should it take 9-12 seconds to make our one single dot ability worthwhile? =/ ALL the other melee classes have bleeds and poisons. Imo if I hit someone in the face with a hammer, SOMETHING should be bleeding.

Divine Storm = Daze debuff imo.


Also, the models for T11 and S9 are available:

Paladin Tier 11 (PVE)
Paladin Season 9 Gladiator (PVP)

Why does Blizz want us to look like birds lol.
Is it the wings? Having wings doesn't mean we're druids! :o

Beta Paladin Changes:

Lay on Hands: Forbearance effect no longer includes Divine Protection or self-targeted Lay on Hands.

[TALENT] Acts of Sacrifice: new additional effect - In addition, your Cleanse will remove one movement impairing effect if cast on yourself.

[TALENT] Crusade: new additional effect - In addition, for 15 sec after you kill an enemy that yields experience or honor, your next Holy Light heals for an additional 100/200/300%.

[TALENT] Divine Purpose now also procs from Hammer of Wrath.


YEEEEEEEEEAH we're in business baby!

Now if only they had squeezed those changes into the 4.0 patch lol.

What has changed about the Paladin class
between WotLK and 4.0/Cataclysm?

**NEW** The Retribution Concordance: 4.0 & Cataclysm
This is the newest ElitistJerks ret paladin guide for use in 4.0 and Cata. It's very complete and informative with pretty much everything you wanna know! Talent specs, rotations, professions, gemming, all that. Check it out!
- - - -

Simply put, EVERYTHING. Every facet of our class has been totally revamped - our roles, our talents, and our abilities. The niches we filled in WotLK are no longer ours to fill in Cata and each spec has a variety of new tools to master.

The most altered spec by far has been Retribution.

( RET 4.0: HOLY SHIFT* )
*Some of this information may be slightly outdated since ret updates are a little scattered.

Alright so I'm in beta yes? I've been in beta since the cap was 82 or something I dunno, I didn't reach it by then lol.

But yeah, it didn't make sense to write about the pally changes yet since they were dramatically changing our tree every week. @_@ Now that the trees have stabilized for the most part and I've have a chance to do some questing with the current ret setup, I feel like I can finally comment something worthwhile.

( CURRENT BETA BUILD 'FLUFFY': Retribution tree )


My favorite talents thus far "Rebuke" and "Long Arm of the Law." These 2 active talents make pvp A LOT less painful, not to mention judging something from far away and getting a big speed increase is really fun.

Regrettably I haven't had a chance to test anything in a 5man. I haven't replaced enough quest gear to open them up. :P

At this time PVP gear is worthless as Resilience is broken and your pve gear has way more stats (even stam) than the pvp tier pieces. Disappoint.


Questing as Ret

Questing in general is a lot harder but more interesting and involved. No longer can you run up to a pack of 3 mobs and kill them before they take you down to 95%. Now if you jump into a pack you will die lol. Even in the best gear!

But what's changed is mobs no longer chain, or the chaining is kept to a minimum. That means you can taunt one of the mobs over to you without disturbing the other 2 in the pack. This makes questing in Cata much easier. When you DO chain something (it's usually just 2) you'll probably have to CC one of them. Hit it with Repen and you'll be fine.

Mobs do A LOT more damage in Cata as well. I find myself hitting WoG more often than TV so far. Perhaps that will change with more gear. Our talent "Eternal Glory" has saved me more times than I can count though lol.

Mana isn't really an issue as long as you take "Communion" and use WoG to heal. FoL has big crits but it costs a big chunk of mana. The new long cast heal Divine Light doesn't cost as much but it also takes a long time to cast and doesn't crit very often for rets.

ALRIGHT, PALADINS!

Let's jump right into the newest stuff:

BlizzChat Developer Chat: 7/16

All of the paladin specializations will make use of a new resource called Holy Power. Holy Power accumulates from using Crusader Strike, Holy Shock, and some other talents. Holy Power can be consumed to augment a variety of abilities, including:

* An instant mana-free heal: Word of Glory
* A buff to increase holy damage done: Inquisition
* A massive physical melee attack for Retribution paladins: Templar’s Verdict
* Holy Shield’s duration is now extended by Holy Power
* Divine Storm’s damage is now increased by Holy Power




THAT'S RIGHT LADIES AND RETADINS, PALLIES GET A COMBO POINT SYSTEM IN CATA. ROGUES IN PLATE, YOU SAY? Commence your collective exclamations of WTF. I understand Blizz is trying to make paladin play more uhhh interesting but I don't think giving us the same basic system as rogues really works for a hybrid class (ferals gtfo).

I'm not OPPOSED to the idea persay it just.. comes straight outta left field. It's like, of all the ways you could develop paladin play you chose to give us combo points? How did that even come up!

Already they're trying to give us an idea of how we use it. The new ability Templar's Verdict is gonna be our version Eviscerate.

Divine Storm will also be affected by the point system which means hitting it on CD won't be a good idea if we want to maximize its damage.

This system will effectively end our facerolling.. to a certain degree. We still don't know what exactly triggers combo points Points can trigger from all special attacks. It will likely be a core function of our rotation. Everything we do is to get those combo points rolling so we can use our hardest hitting abilities.


Now a closer look at the new ret ability:

Templar’s Verdict: An instant weapon attack that causes a percentage of weapon damage. Consumes all applications of Holy Power to increase damage dealt:

* 1 Holy Power: 55% Weapon Damage
* 2 Holy Power: 125% Weapon Damage
* 3 Holy Power: 225% Weapon Damage

So this is gonna be a big mean attack and something we want to press at every opportunity. As DS was our big swing ability in WotLK, TV will be ours in Cata.

Note the combo points. I have a feeling the damage percentages proposed will be changed, but 225% weapon damage in one swing is pretty fucking awesome. Again, we have no idea what kind of cooldown this ability has or how long it takes to stack 3 combo points.


A new instant cast heal that uses our combo points:

Word of Glory: Consumes all Holy Power to heal a friendly target for a specific amount per application of Holy Power (0 mana cost, 0 cooldown, instant cast).

This is Blizz attempting to address our inevitable mana issues in pvp. Although an initially attractive ability, it all depends on how long it takes to get 3 combo points. You might be screwed by the time you realize oh crap I need to heal, and if we assume the new Art of War gives us instant Holy Light casts instead of Flash of Light casts, mana will be very very very tight.


A word on how they're handling Judgment in Cata:

There will only be one Judgement spell. This spell places a single debuff on the target with the effects currently associated with Judgement of Light and Judgement of Justice. The Judgement of Wisdom effect has been retired completely.

With our new mana problems no JoW in pvp is gonna suck. I REALLY dislike the idea of cramming all the different Judgments into one. Once upon a time knowing when to switch between Judgments meant you were a good player. :( Now it's just a lazy debuff ability. How boring.


Holy Shock is no longer a baseline ability and will likely be the level 10 "signature" spell for Holy.


Crusader Strike is still baseline for all paladins and as of right now there is nothing in the Ret tree to beef it up (i.e. "Improved Crusader Strike" which was moved to the Prot tree for some reason). The only talent that increases CS's damage is a generic top tier 3pt talent "Crusade" which increases damage/healing to CS, Holy Shock, and Hammer of the Righteous by 15%. Lame.


Healing Hands is the new paladin AoE spell similar to a druid's Tranquility. It heals all nearby allies for X amount over 10 seconds. It is an instant cast and costs 40% of our base mana. I see this being used very infrequently, if ever, by rets.


Blinding Shield: Your shield glows with a blinding light causing 500 Holy damage to all targets within 8 yards and blinding them for 3 sec if they are facing you.
12% of base mana, 1.5 sec cast, 1 min cooldown
PVP rets better get used to swapping their 2H for a shield every now and then lol. Think of it like a casted Holy Wrath that works on humanoids. Pretty pimp imo, and it's relatively cost effective.


Guardian of the Ancient Kings might still be on the table but there's no mention of it in the beta talent trees nor have we heard anything about it for months.


Cleanse is being reworked into a Holy-only ability, which means rets and prot will no longer be able to dispel themselves or others. I miss it already. :(


Blessing of Might will now have the added benefit of Blessing of Wisdom. There will only be 2 blessings now: Might and Kings.


Sacred Shield is being converted into a 30min buff much like our Seals. Unlike our Seals, it can still be dispelled.

Promised Ret Interrupt? Your guess is as good as mine. =/

I'm already nostalgic for the old days... back when our personal information wasn't handed out like candy to complete strangers on public forums.

About the whole RealID bullshit.

Well.

It's bullshit lol.

I don't think Blizz itself is behind these changes. It's just not in the spirit of Blizz to piss off most of their player base over "trolls on the forums."

No it's someone at Activision going HURHURR FACEBOOK IS KOOL let's find weak excuses to make this idea go live! Blizz has treated us pretty well over the years and has continued to make games we all love to play. That being said, I have no doubt Blizz will continue to make fun games. I also have no doubt Activision will be hiding menacingly behind the Blue Curtain looking for new ways to trivialize the safety and privacy of Blizz's player base.

I want to stand by Blizz, but Actiblizzard not the company we fell in love with when we first played Diablo, Starcraft, and of course the Warcraft series and MMORPG. RealID in-game was the first step on a short path towards disaster. RealID on the forums is the second.

A lot of people have been canceling their accounts over this and I don't blame them. However I am hesitant to do the same because, considering the MASSIVE backlash Actiblizzard has faced in the last 2 days, I feel changes to these proposed changes will happen. I want to believe there's still some good in this creative company, that it's not just a heartless machine hellbent on stripping its account holders of anything resembling privacy or choice. THERE'S STILL GOOD IN HIM, OBI-WAN!

Hopefully...

LOL WE WIN
Real Names on Official Forums - Cancelled

Dear Blizz, don't piss off the internet lol.

DIVINE SNEEZE.

So how's The Battle for Wintergrasp Fortress been for y'all these days?

I hear massive server imbalances have caused WG to be predictable, boring, stupid easy zerg fests for one side while being equally predictable, boring, graveyard parties for the other side.



Literally, graveyard parties.

If you're on the zergfest side, sure, it's probably kinda fun sometimes. But when you're in a group of 60+ people trying to hunt down the lone 2-5 enemy players... it gets a little old.

For me anyway. =/

As a ret pally I have crazy burst, mobility, and survivability. This serves me well in most fights but ehh... By definition, I am not a tank. When the 2-5 enemy players in WG have 20 stacks of tenacity, I'm basically going up against a raid boss. Ever been caught by a rogue with 15+ tenacity? They can 1 shot plate wearers. :( At the same time, a raid boss can and will be taken down by 10+ people, aka a raid.

On my server, the situation has stopped being fun for pretty much everyone involved. Although Alliance has made a concerted effort to win WG more often (much to my delight!) the imbalance is still painfully obvious most of the time.


Painfully obvious. :(

So these upcoming WG changes are great news:


Wintergrasp Balancing
"We plan to add an additional balancing mechanism to the Wintergrasp queue system some time after patch 3.3.5. The queue will attempt to match factions at a 1:1 ratio for each battle, down to a minimum of 20 players. If there are less than 20 players on one side, the queue will still try to pull 20 players from the other side. This is to discourage the low population faction from boycotting Wintergrasp and preventing the other faction from being able to participate (i.e. force a game that's 5 vs. 5, or 0 vs. 0).

"So in your case, if this system were in place the match would be 20 vs. 10 instead of 40 vs. 10. Tenacity would play less of a role, but players on your faction would have a harder time getting into a battle. This system will also be used for Tol Barad in Cataclysm. The idea is to favor realms with balanced populations rather than favor realms where your faction is dominant."


I may miss WG more often because "Wintergrasp is full," but if these changes allow more people to participate and actually enjoy the fight, I'm all for it. This will be the testing grounds for the new Cataclysm outdoor BG/quest hub, Tol Barad.

Honestly though?

Just bring back Isle of Quel'danas.

All your dailies stacked up on a tiny island with no flying mounts. It was sooo much fun on pvp servers. I miss TBC... /sadface

"The login server is currently busy."

LOL.

Did a lot of sketching today, none of which I can post lol but here have some screenshots! It was a BIG update so be careful! Slow computers will hurt lol.


LFM: Screenshots!

Time to reroll shaman?

Retribution in Cataclysm

Crusader Strike
The current plan is for Crusader Strike to be baseline, but for Ret to have talents that add to it, and for Divine Storm to be the 51-point talent.

Divine Storm
[...] Keep in mind that the way Retribution works, you aren't often choosing to exclude one attack in exchange for another. A Fury warrior can just not use Whirlwind and spend the rage on Heroic Strike again. But Rets are not limited by mana as much as cooldowns. You can choose to not do anything when Crusader Strike et al. are on cooldown, or you can use Divine Storm.

I agree it would, and perhaps does, feel crappy to get the same ability that another class gets as a base ability for your 51-point talent. That's not the design goal.


What the hell Blizz. "I agree it would, and perhaps does, feel crappy to get the same ability that another class gets as a base ability for your 51-point talent. That's not the design goal." UH? You said DS is going to remain the 51pt retribution talent except you're turning it into a nerfed Whirlwind but it's not your "design goal?" WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT EVEN MEAN.

I raided as moonkin when WotLK first came out and it REALLY sucked because our 51 talent Starfall was soooo bad it wasn't even worth the point most of the time. I will die hardcore inside if that's what they do to ret. Imagine not taking DS in your build... wtf right? It's a signature move of our class/spec and it's starting to look like garbage.

Dear Blizz,
I'll say it once and I'll say it again: if I wanted to play a warrior I WOULD'VE ROLLED ONE!

Gtfo.
No love, me.


------[UPDATE]------

There are a few basic way classes choose what attack to use next. Some classes are limited by resources. If a rogue has 60 energy, she can choose to spend it on attack A or attack B. If attack A hits harder and attack B doesn't have situational utility, then she'll use A every time.

A warlock generally isn't limited by mana within short time scales. A lock's decisions are more rotational. You want to cast A before you cast B. It's not that B is bad, just that it becomes more powerful if you do A first. For example, there is little point in casting your first Corruption seconds before the target is about to die.

Paladins have a third model, one more based on prioritization. You aren't generally limited by mana, and you don't generally need to do things in a certain order for the mechanics to work, but you do have attacks that you'd rather use when they are available (generally because they hit harder). The decision point comes in because you have a lot of cooldowns, so you can't just spam your hardest hitting attack over and over again. When your Judgements and Hammer and Crusader Strike are on cooldown, then your choice is probably Divine Storm. (Depending on your gear, DS might even trump CS.) If Divine Storm's damage went down, then you might prioritize Consecration or Exorcism higher, but you can't spam those either, so then you're back to Divine Storm or autoattack. That was my point.

There are things we can do as well to make Divine Storm better at single targets without making it overpowered against groups of targets. Off the top of my head, there are mechanics like the meteor where the damage is divided among the targets. What we are trying to chill out on the warrior, paladin and DK particularly is the "free AE" component. When your AE attacks are balanced against single targets (in the absence of some mechanic like I was suggesting above) then you just get free damage when you can AE as well. This means those classes leap dramatically ahead on meters whenever they are in a situation where they can "cleave." It also means they aren't doing anything very differently when faced with groups of mobs over single targets. By contrast the mage might switch to Blizzard or Living Bomb and the rogue has to start using Fan of Knives.

One of the ways we can support more individual abilities on classes is by making them situational. If you use all of your attacks no matter what the situation, then your gameplay tends to get very formulaic and eventually boring. It is also likely to get really complicated if your whole action bar is part of your standard rotation. A better design, we think, is that some abilities get used in AE situations and some get used in single-target situations. There can be overlap, but we'd at least like players to assess the upcoming battle and make some decisions about how to approach it before just going into a tunnel vision button-hitting mode.


I disagree with the notion that making DS a "situational" talent will make ret pallies more unique. DS is already unique. It's our signature move, unlike Whirlwind which is just a baseline aoe attack for all warrior specs. There's nothing special about WW. Nothing. How is giving it to rets supposed to make it special? More sparkles? =/

The point is I really like pressing my DS button when it comes off CD. I really really do. Promise I will NEVER get bored of sparkly hammers and glitter swirling around me.



Solution: Make CS baseline, put a 1 point 10% dmg to CS buff in its place in the talent tree to replace it.
That is not an announced change. I can understand the frustration of being in a gray area at the moment where you know some information that we have released but much of the details are still under NDA. Unfortunately, if you focus on little tidbits that someone leaked or speculated, then you aren't going to get the full story. In cases like this we had to put something in the talent tree as temporary filler when we pulled CS. Many of the talent trees have talents that say NYI or just plain don't do anything. That's just where we are in the alpha process. If we push data at a stage when someone can't even talent down a tree then the spec becomes unplayable. As such, we have to make talent tree changes in large chunks at once.

GC - "We are nerfing Divine Storm against single targets because we don't want AoE abilities to be used against single targets, but we fully expect Divine Storm to continue to be used against single targets."
More accurate to say that we don't want single target abilities to get free bonus damage when in groups. That's not balance-able. For the warrior the solution is to make Whirlwind not cost-effective against single-targets. For the DK, it's about getting Pestilence back towards a utility role (getting diseases up on groups) and not a massive AE attack. For the paladin, we still want them to use Divine Storm (and you can't cost-effect a Ret paladin anyway) so the solution will have to be something different.

How about something like having Crusader Strike apply some kind of debuff to the target . Then have Divine Storm hit anyone with that debuff harder. I think that would get its damage up on single targets but keep it lower on groups.
Yep, both this and the tie-in to Judgements are good ideas. We also like the T102P bonus.


Hnn... so.. there are a lot of ideas floating around here. I'm okay with the CS target debuff idea. We really gotta see what kind of debuff they're talking about here before I jump for joy but it's better than what I've heard proposed so far.

I wonder what they mean by "tie-in to Judgements."

Ahh the T10 2pc bonus. Sometimes I miss it in PVP and it would be interesting to make it a core Ret talent instead of just a set bonus. If they do that I hope they make it more cost effective though.

Shadowmourne?

In MY future??

Sorta kinda maybe. :x

I finally made a Shadow's Edge last week and spent the rest of the week farming souls on ICC trash. 1000 souls was a lot more than I thought it would be lol.

This week my guild helped me get the infusions done. The unholy infusion was a lot of fun! Ironically I wasn't playing my pally for it durhurhurr but I was playing a DK tank. X3 So I had to tank Putricide... but I didn't fuck it up! WOO! And we got it done! YAY.

Blood infusion was more fun than it should've been lol. I uhh.. may have gotten MC'd at some point. X3 Vent was like "HAHA LOBSTER GET FUCKED!" and everyone ran up to kill me! OF COURSE LOBSTER IS UNKILLABLE DUH so naturally I went around two shotting everyone hahaa. Raid leader didn't think it was that funny but oh god I laughed. I'm bad.

Anyway got that part done, tomorrow is the frost infusion. It's uhh.. it's gonna be interesting lol.

As far as Shadowmourne priority goes we just started #3 tonight. There is technically someone else ahead of me however he's showing little interest or initiative. Idk. The reason we want potential Shadowmourne recipients to get all their quests/infusions finished now is because our #3 guy can't always be in the raid. Real life obligations, etc. To avoid wasting potential shards we want more than one eligible person around.

Anyway.. tomorrow Shadowmourne guy #2 gets to decide how to pass out the Sealed Chest lootz. Here's hoping for another Gurubashi battle!