Anywho, I've been AB'ing it up, in hopes to get my AB boots, then I'll be hitting the WSG to get the epic lvl 50 bracers, then it's power level to 58 time. As I've been playing my Paladin, I've noticed a few things that are quite different than PvP'ing with my low level Warlock, my Warrior, my Priest, my Rogue, or my Mage. The Paladin really is there for support. If it's anything more than 1v1, the paladin is supportive only. He can't handle taking down two of any class, like all the others above can, but in a 2v2 situation, he makes all the difference for a positive outcome. Whether he's healing, standing around with Concentration aura and dropping judgments, or swinging his weapon around for some mild DPS, he's great in a many vs many encounter.

The Paladin is also a machine in the 1v1 encounter. I haven't had trouble taking anything down in 1v1.

The issue is, the numbers on the scoreboard don't show the paladin's usefulness. You don't often see a Paladin at the top (Where I'm used to being), but you often see them mired in the middle. In the 40-49 bracket, I'm stuck in the middle of the scoreboard with, on average 15 killing blows, 20000 damage, and 20000 healing (I don't keep track of HK's, meaningless stat that it is, "I was in the vicinity when people died, whoopadeedoo"). The score doesn't show the paladin's effectiveness. The score doesn't show that you bubbled and hit people trying to cap your flag. It doesn't show that your blessing of might increased every rogues DPS by 20. It doesn't show that your concentration aura allowed all the priests and mages around you to be that much more effective.

The Paladin is amazing in PvP, but the numbers simply don't show it. And, at times, the player may not even feel it.

So what does this mean? This means, you PvP in early brackets to twink your character now. There's no reason to stay in any bracket, like before there used to be. So what do people do now? My suggestion is to plan out what exact PvP rewards you want as your character progresses. Also, plan out what rewards are worth your time investment. 30 WSG win tokens for a +7 stamina, 6 hp/5sec trinket? Only you can answer that question for yourself (how often you win vs lose). Sometimes, it might be better to farm stuff and buy gear in the AH. Once you spend your PvP Honour and Tokens, it's gone for good, and there's no XP in it. So is the 10-30 WSG matches worth a mediocre trinket? Is the 7-20 AB matches worth the belt for your bracket? Will that time investment make it that much easier to lvl your character?

PvP is a much different beast now then it was before. Still fun, but the rewards are much more piece-meil, and some of the really good rewards end up going to players that don't deserve them (like the lvl 60/70 GM weapons).

I came back with all the promised glory of the Burning Crusade! I was all about rolling a seksy new Draenei character. Will I roll a shaman like everyone else? Will I be different and roll a Paladin? Well... How did I chose...

I rolled both! The goal for the Shammy was to get to two one handed axes and be a walking death machine. The goal for the Pally was to use Polearms and just be friggen cool. So, I leveled each up to lvl 26, then made the choice. The winner was.... The Pally!

Yes Yes, I may be crazy. And all the shammies out there say, "It feels like cheating." Well, with a little bit of twinkage, the pally is a fat beat machine too.

PvP

The pally is one of the most surviveable PvP classes. In Warsong Gulch, the 8% runspeed talent is amazing, as is Blessing of Freedom and the plethora of aura's. The Shammy gets Earthbind totem. frostshock, and ghost wolf. Fair tossup I'd say. In Arathi Basin, Devine Shield is outstanding for defending a flag, whilst the shammy doesn't have much in additional flag defense tools (at least, nothing anywhere near as cool as devine shield).

A pally beats the ever loving stuffing out of a Shaman in 1v1 combat (either that, or all the shammies I pummeled completely suck). Pally drops blessing of freedom often, and just chase the dude around till he's dead.

PvE

I again prefer the Pally in PvE. There are two reasons for this. One is the wicked awesome polearm attack animations. Shammies can't even use polearms *cries*. The other reason is... NOT DYING. Now, shammies are very survivable. It takes a lot to bring a shammy down. But if a shammy gets overrun by 3-6 mobs, he's dead. A pally hits a bubble and runs and lives! I've lvl'd the pally to 40 now, and he's died all of twice. Not making corpse runs sure grants a lot more useful play time. One thing the shammy has that the pally doesn't is meaningful DPS. The only thing keeping my DPS up as a pally is twink polearms. If I was using greens, I'd be dying of boredom whilst grinding.

That's it for my Pally vs Shammy discussion! Thanks to all the people who keep referencing this site and keeping it #1 on this server, even though I haven't written in 7 months!

More to come!

The Chess metaphor is very accurate, with each class falling into a specific role as pieces on a chess board do, having very similar pitfalls and attack capabilities, as pieces on a chess board do. I knew in my mind it was a valid comparison, but I didn't know how valid and important it could be.

While I could write the article right now, I'm going to hold off and get all my ducks in a row and make sure I get it right, coherent, and usable to the masses out there. Also, I need to PvP with my Shaman a bunch so I don't leave that class out (as I primarily play Alliance).

So it's coming! Sorry for the wait! And lastly, thanks for your readership! We had a shocking 230,000 hits for the month of June.

(lifted from zdnet)

#1: Loose for lose
No: I always loose the product key.
Yes: I always lose the product key.

#2: It's for its (or god forbid, its')
No: Download the HTA, along with it's readme file.
Yes: Download the HTA, along with its readme file.
No: The laptop is overheating and its making that funny noise again.
Yes: The laptop is overheating and it's making that funny noise again.

#3: They're for their for there
No: The managers are in they're weekly planning meeting.
Yes: The managers are in their weekly planning meeting.
No: The techs have to check there cell phones at the door, and their not happy about it.
Yes: The techs have to check their cell phones at the door, and they're not happy about it.

#4: i.e. for e.g.
No: Use an anti-spyware program (i.e., Ad-Aware).
Yes: Use an anti-spyware program (e.g., Ad-Aware).
Note: The term i.e. means "that is"; e.g. means "for example". And a comma follows both of them.

#5: Effect for affect
No: The outage shouldn't effect any users during work hours.
Yes: The outage shouldn't affect any users during work hours.
Yes: The outage shouldn't have any effect on users.
Yes: We will effect several changes during the downtime.

Note: Impact is not a verb. Purists, at least, beg you to use affect instead:
No: The outage shouldn't impact any users during work hours.
Yes: The outage shouldn't affect any users during work hours.
Yes: The outage should have no impact on users during work hours.

#6: You're for your
No: Remember to defrag you're machine on a regular basis.
Yes: Remember to defrag your machine on a regular basis.
No: Your right about the changes.
Yes: You're right about the changes.

#7: Different than for different from
No: This setup is different than the one at the main office.
Yes: This setup is different from the one at the main office.
Yes: This setup is better than the one at the main office.

#8 Lay for lie
No: I got dizzy and had to lay down.
Yes: I got dizzy and had to lie down.
Yes: Just lay those books over there.

#9: Then for than
No: The accounting department had more problems then we did.
Yes: The accounting department had more problems than we did.

Note: Here's a sub-peeve. When a sentence construction begins with If, you don't need a then. Then is implicit, so it's superfluous and wordy:
No: If you can't get Windows to boot, then you'll need to call Ted.
Yes: If you can't get Windows to boot, you'll need to call Ted.

#10: Could of, would of for could have, would have
No: I could of installed that app by mistake.
Yes: I could have installed that app by mistake.
No: I would of sent you a meeting notice, but you were out of town.
Yes: I would have sent you a meeting notice, but you were out of town.

Today I'd like to talk about the role of an Alliance Priest in Alterac Valley. The biggest challenge for the you Priests is finding who to heal. Even if everyone is in the same raid group, chances are, people are running all over the place, and your four immediate group mates are no where near you. As you watch the health bars drop in CTRaid, you'll find that you are often presented with the, "Out of Range" dialog. As you stand there trying to heal out-of-range people, a rogue sneaks up behind you and two shots you with his Perditions Blade (ow, I thought 4K hp was enough to PvP with a Priest o_O).

The priest needs to be conscious of his immediate surroundings. It's time to turn those name bars back on, if you've turned them off, and I recommend.... not having CTRaid windows up. Instead, use the Blizzard provided class windows. Now as you look at your immediate peers, and who's getting smacked around, you can easily correlate that to a class window and name, and heal appropriately.

The other option, if you happen to be in with a bunch of friends, is to focus healing on your immediate four group peers. This is especially valuable if you are achieving a PvE goal in AV, like attacking the mine.

In closing, healing is very important in all PvP situations, a good heal can make a blue equipped Warrior more effective than an Epically equipped Warrior that doesn't get that nice heal.

Please contact me and send me screenshots of this new stuff, I'll keep scouring the Entire Internet and post real information as soon as I can.

Email: mrh176@mail.usask.ca

Edit: More Details... I screwed up the item above ;)

Venoxis
Seal of the Gurubashi Berserker
Epic,Ring,Unique
+13 Stamina
40 ATP

Jeklik
'Have to get the name again'
Rare,Leather,Helm
+22 Agility
+21 Stamina
%2 to Hit

Warrior makes first pull, no sunders, no taunt, mage in full tier 2 gets tired of waiting, attacks, pulls aggro. He lives, but we all are a little confused, but shrug it off and move on. We clear to razor in pretty much the same fashion.

warrior pulls razor, no taunts, not sunders, mage crits, spends the rest of the fight tanking. We kill razor and i noticed the tank has a full rage bar. I get a whisper from him.

warrior "i did good"
me "you couldnt keep aggro off mage, he tanked the boss, kinda not so great"
warrior "but didnt you see my aggro bar?"
me "agro bar?"
warrior "have you never played a warrior before?"
me "no ive played one"
warrior "you must have forgot, you know the agro bar, the red bar under your health that goes up if you pull good aggro"

i died a little inside"

http://antiotter.livejournal.com/144625.html