Taugrim's MMO Blog

Excerpt from the YouTube video description:

This HD video is narrated footage of my 85 Prot Pally in Cataclysm Patch v4.0.3a in Arena 2v2 with an Enhancement Shaman, Kashmír. This is my fourth Arena video for Cataclysm for Season 9.

We started the week at 2002 Rating and finished at 2005, with a record for the week of 31-25. It was an up-and-down week but we continued to learn a lot from our mistakes – hopefully you will too

Last week was not a great week for us – we had a couple ugly slumps, but we managed to dig ourselves out. We finished the week ranked at #221. I looked through the top 200 teams on Shadowburn, and there were 0 Prot Pallies and 7 Enhancement Shamans.

Last night (Tuesday) we did go 6-2, which raised our rating to 2036 and our ranking to #175 in our battlegroup. Onward, upward!

Opposing Comps

• DK / Holy Paladin
• Mage / Shadow Priest
• Mage / Resto Druid
• Rogue / Resto Shaman
• Rogue / Shadow Priest
• Rogue / Feral Druid
• Mage / Shadow Priest
• Mage / Rogue
• Mage / Warrior

Tips

• As discussed in the video, Kashmír switched from 8/33 to 5/33/3, putting points into the Spark of Life talent. For a dual-DPS comp that has been a great move, as I have an easier time keep his HP up with my healing
• One thing I forgot to mention in the video: if we know that we are facing a Caster/stealth MDPS comp, we have Kashmír wait out of LoS, so that when the  MDPS opens up on him, the Caster has to ride around the pillar to DPS Kashmír. This buys us valuable time until we can get control of the situation
• I treat Divine Shield as a second trinket. Long gone are the days where a non-Holy Pally can bubble and heal to full. I can heal about 30-35% of my HP while bubbled
• As I said in the video, against Rogue/DPS comps, I will break Sap with my PVP trinket, because these fights go quick and if I ride out the Sap duration the outcome may already be determined. This isn’t 1v1, where you wait out the Sap against a Rogue
• Check out my Prot Pally PVP Guide for the full scoop on the Prot spec, including my take on the upcoming changes for Prot in 4.0.6 (Rebuke!!!)

If you have a questions for Kashmír or me, please post ‘em below.

P.S. there are over 330 comments posted on the Prot Pally PVP Guide – there are dozens of Pallies sharing their tips and tactics there, and I am glad to see the Guide grow as a resource for the community.

P.P.S. blog readers and players from other servers in BGs been kind enough to express their thanks for the material I’ve been posting. One player last night found a funny way of contacting me:

This HD video is narrated footage of my 85 Prot Pally in Cataclysm Patch v4.0.3a in Arena 2v2 with an Enhancement Shaman, Kashmír. This is my third Arena video for Cataclysm.

Our Team by the Numbers

We worked our way up from 1850 to 2000 rating in the 4th week of Season 9 and earned the 2k Achievement

We started the week by going 9-9, adjusted our tactics, and then finished with a 16-7 run over the next 23 games. We barely missed out on the Hotter Streak Achievement (10 consecutive wins at 1800+).

We were ranked #213 for Shadowburn as of Tuesday morning, and we have climbed up to #119 as of the time of this post.

We are the only Prot Pally / Enhancement Shaman comp in the top 200. We’ve never faced a mirror comp.

Here’s the link to our team page, if you want to check out our gear/spec/enchants/gems/etc:

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/arena/wildhammer/2v2/beasteh/

Opposing Comps

This video features the following opposing comps:

• Mage / Shadow Priest
• Rogue / Shadow Priest
• Mage / Shadow Priest (same team, different map)
• Warrior / Mage
• Rogue / Shadow Priest
• Death Knight / Holy Paladin
• Death Knight / Restoration Druid

Tips

• As discussed in the video, “reverse kiting” has worked really well for us. Basically we kite a MDPS out of LoS from his team mate. If the team mate is a Healer this makes it difficult for the Healer to heal the MDPS without using instant casts or fast-cast, mana-inefficient heals. If the team mate is a Caster this prevents them from freecasting on us. I call this reverse kiting because teams usually expect us as a dual-melee comp to come after them. We’ve learned the hard way that that can put us in very vulnerable situations
• Check out my Prot Pally PVP Guide for the full scoop on the Prot spec, including my take on the upcoming changes for Prot in 4.0.6 (Rebuke!!!)

If you have a questions for either me or Kashmír, please post ‘em below.

Excerpt from the YouTube video description:

This HD video is narrated footage of my 85 Protection Paladin in Cataclysm Patch v4.0.3a in a Battle for Gilneas battleground (queued solo). I discuss the spec’s burst chain capability (assuming procs) and survivability with no healing support.

This is my 7th Prot PVP video since 4.0 launched and my 2nd at 85 in Cataclysm. As of this video I have assembled a “baseline” set of 85 PVP gear

For detailed information about Prot PVP, check out my PVP Guide:
http://taugrim.com/2010/10/14/guide-wow-4-0-protection-paladin-class-mechanics

Please post feedback / questions / comments. Thanks!

Excerpt from the YouTube video description:

This HD video is narrated footage of my 80 Protection Paladin in Patch v4.0.3a in an Eye of the Storm BG (queued solo).

This is my 5th Prot PVP video since 4.0 launched, and in this one I discuss the (significant) changes that were introduced in 4.0.3a and how they impact Prot PVP.

For detailed information about 4.0.3a, check out my Prot Pally PVP Guide – in particular Section 14 where I break down every documented and undocumented change:
http://taugrim.com/2010/10/14/guide-wow-4-0-protection-paladin-class-mechanics

Summary of the changes:
A. Survivability has gone down significantly, primarily due to the nerf to PotI
B. Our burst damage has been toned down a bit, but we can still deliver effective burst
C. Our sustained DPS has decreased noticeably, due to the cumulative effect of multiple nerfs (e.g. to CS, to SoT, etc)
D. We have received a few situational buffs per the video (e.g. Crusader, Divine Plea HoPo generation)

In 4.0.3a, I changed specs from 3/31/2 to 0/31/5 given that Protector of the Innocent no longer works for self-heals. So Prot spec is once again “Protribution” (i.e. Prot/Ret).

To turn on enemy health bars, with class colors:
a. to show the health bar over all players, use the keybind for Show All Name Plates
b. to color the health bars of enemy players per their class: check the box for: Options | Interface| Combat | Class Colors in Nameplates

Errata / Clarifications:
1. the clips of WoG healing at the start of the video were intended to show that despite multiple changes to WoG (base healing increased, GbtL nerfed), its healing output is the same as before. My new spec doesn’t have PotI due to the nerf
2. the Alliance Pally that I killed in the middle and end of the video was Prot not Holy
3. when I killed the Lock, the 5.9k crit was from HoW not HotR
4. at the end of the video, after bubbling, I should have cast HL with the Crusader buff, instead of spamming FoL. Old habits die hard

P.S. let me know if the narration volume or game sound volume need adjusting for future vids.

If you’ve been following the Beta news, you’ve probably heard that a lot of changes are coming to the Paladin class in Patch 4.0.3 – probably more than any other WoW class – relative to what is on Live currently (4.0.1).

Here are links to posts about the recent Beta Builds (chronological order):

• Build 13221 and clarification post
• Build 13241
• Build 13245

Even with the changes in the above builds, the main Achilles heel for Ret PVP has not been addressed – namely that Ret’s burst damage relies on buffs (Avenging Wrath, Zealotry) that are dispellable. There is an excellent thread that describes the issue on the WoW Pally forum.

As far as Prot PVP is concerned, I have added a new section, Upcoming Patch Changes, to my Prot Pally 4.0 PVP Guide in which I discuss the specific changes and how they impact the spec. What I plan to do is track changes in that section, and once the next Patch goes live, I’ll update the rest of the guide with the actual changes to mechanics / talents / abilities on Live. Then the cycle will start over again.