Scourge Invasion

Oh sh-

Brain Flakes: Start your zombie day off the right way!

You'll probably know about the Zombie Infestation event that's currently on the go in preparation for the release of Wrath. If you don't, then zombies are appearing all over Azeroth and are attempting to turn players who in turn go on to infect entire villages.

So, being the RP-wannabe that I am I've refused to spend much time as a zombie (apart from when I found out that using Divine Shield whilst infected will instantly turn you) and instead am focusing on cleansing everybody that I can and patrolling the low-level areas near to Stormwind. Westfall seems to be a hotspot of Scourge activity, so I'm spending most of my online time there protecting low level questers and some of the more essential NPC's.

It's also a fantastic excuse to let rip with some of my more powerful anti-undead spells and give some players a taste of what a paladin can do. The zombies are currently rather easy to take down, however they're very likely to infect you with the plague which is proving harder to dispel as time goes by.

The constant development of the plague and new vectors (Cockroaches now) appearing in cities suggests that Blizzard are building up to something; Probably involving good 'ol Arthas paying us a visit sometime soon.

The Demon Barber of Stormwind

You'll probably know this but with patch 3.0.2 barber shops opened throughout Azeroth, allowing players to change their hairstyles, markings, horns etc. I played about a bit on patch day and settled for giving Almarov long, black hair and a beard - In order to finally get rid of his dimple chin.

The abandonment of the pony-tail, however, did not go down too well with Nel, who gradually persuaded me to restore Almarov to his former style, but with a beard this time.

So, this is his current look:


Pretty cunnin' dontcha think?

Heroic Slave Pens

Wow. Just... Wow. That was frighteningly easy.

Apart from 3-4 wipes due to everybody messing about with new skills and talents (Nel trying to heal everybody using only Wild Growth, for example) the instance was laughable. Once or twice the group found ourselves questioning whether we had in fact set the instance for Heroic.

So, yes... Everybody is a little overpowered right now.

One thing that this run highlighted was how greatly improved paladin single-target threat generation is, as I only lost aggro once and that was easily corrected with Hand of Salvation (which I'll talk about in more detail another time).

Overview
Heroic Slave Pens
Party Members:

Protection Paladin (70) - Almarov
Feral Druid (70) - Shemyaza
Feral Druid (70) - Delffie
Marksmanship Hunter (70) - Velaxis
Restoration Druid (70) - Nelspa

Wipes: 4

Bosses Downed: All

Run Time (Approx): 1hr 15m

Hammer Time:- Hammer of the Righteous Musings

I'm going to give a rundown of each new talent/skill for paladins in a seperate post. First off the block is the 51-point Protection talent, Hammer of the Righteous.



I love this skill, I really do. It's an immense boost to aggro generation (With Blazeguard I'm averaging around 1,000-1,300 Holy damage per strike) on three targets, with "Adjacent" being within about 6 feet of each other... Useful for tightly packed groups of enemies, which paladins already excel at anyway.

Also, as it's not reactive damage like the majority of paladin abilities you can run up to a caster, bonk them on the noggin to generate some (armour bypassing) threat and throw down a consecration to keep your party-members happy.

When I got my first critical hit with this spell (Care of an unfortunate Wretched on Quel'danas) I burst out laughing as it managed to strike for about 2,500 damage. It, coupled with the new Strength changes and Attack Power scaling, opens the gateway to solo-paradise for Protection Paladins; dailies that used to take ages to do because of lack luster damage potential can now take half the time. Couple that with AoE grinding and you'll be done in moments.

This all pales in comparison, however, to the main draw of this spell for me; the sound effect.

DONK!

Murphy's Law Crits You For 10,000 Ironic Damage

Figures, as soon as I gear up to start writing the next blog entry after messing about on the new patch (That looks to be going live this evening), I log on in order to say hello to everybody and find out that my game card ran out 6 days ago. I'm also not going shopping again until the patch hits.

D'oh.

Stay tuned.