Prot/Ret Pally with a mega huge sword

Megawalrus — Mon, 07/06/2009 - 21:24

Character Info

Name:

Megawalrus

Server:

Gorgonnash

Race:

Human

Class:

Paladin

Role:

Tanking

General Questions

Which days are you available for organized guild events? (Raids, RBGs, etc):

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

Sunday

Upload UI:

Which addons do you consider essential and why?:

I am a mod whore. I am willing to try any and all mods.

PvE

Raid Experience:

I have tanked/dpsed nearly everything in the game up to hodir in ulduar. 4 years ago I was a healadin wearing a goofy power ranger outfit fighting in AQ and MC. Now I'm wiping the floors in a big basement in Northrend wearing a goofy power ranger outfit. I can main tank and dps everything in Northrend with ease except for ulduar which I am learning every day.

Personal

What timezone are you in?:

San Francisco, California

Tell us a little about yourself.:

Born and raised in San Francisco. Went to college on a soccer scholarship and just graduated. Currently looking for a job at the moment and enjoying life.

Open/Closed:

Closed

Ginvited. Closing app.

garreth — Wed, 08/19/2009 - 16:12

Ginvited. Closing app.

Ran a 5 with Mega. Did great,

garreth — Tue, 08/18/2009 - 15:27

Ran a 5 with Mega. Did great, I like his attitude and he's down to tank damn near anything. I think it's time for an invite.

Good threat

Roronek — Tue, 08/18/2009 - 15:05

Did a 5 man Heroic Utgarde Pinnacle with this guy, kept the threat off me 99% of the time. I might have pulled once, but if i did it wasn't the main target, so not his fault.

Great Attitude, Great Tank.

I happened to run a VoA 25

Prime8 — Tue, 08/04/2009 - 06:44

I happened to run a VoA 25 man with Mega on his mage yesterday. He whispered me as we were getting started to let me know who he was. His dps was a little low (~2.5k-3k), and he didn't make much of an impression personality wise. That's not a dig at him, after all VoA is short, it was a pug, and he was on an alt. The only thing I really took from the run was he didn't get all emo or start complaining when the group wiped a couple of times. I'd like to run something a little more involved with you Mega, maybe (with the new patch here today!!) we can get on some alts and run heroics or something.

Sounds good Prime8! I

Megawalrus — Wed, 08/05/2009 - 12:27

Sounds good Prime8! I actually just dinged 80 with that alt last week and that was my first VoA 25 on a mage ever. I've still got a lot to learn about mage dps and Kwondre has been helping me out with my spec and class mechanics. As for running heroics, hell yeah! I'm totally into running five mans even on my main to farm some badges and get geared up for the Coliseum. Message me anytime.

Hey everyone, just letting

Megawalrus — Tue, 07/21/2009 - 15:21

Hey everyone, just letting you know I'm still here and still trying to get a chance to prove myself. If you have any spare time during the day let me know if you want to run any heroics or anything. I've spent the last week or so in dfrecruit but I'm just trying to create a little more action. Oh, and grats on Yogg yesterday to all of those in Salmon!

Salmon may be needing a tank

Atar — Thu, 07/16/2009 - 15:34

Salmon may be needing a tank tonight. Be on at 6pm if you're available.

Thank you for the heads up

Megawalrus — Thu, 07/16/2009 - 18:16

Thank you for the heads up but I can't be on tonight. My best buddy from Portland is flying in for the weekend am I'm picking him up from the airport in an hour. I'll be available and ready for next week's raid if there's any room.

Were you a striker, or on the

cromi — Wed, 07/15/2009 - 16:51

Were you a striker, or on the defensive side or were you a midfielder?

Went to college on a soccer scholarship you say and did you bust out a knee there?

By the way, I hear there's a

Megawalrus — Wed, 07/15/2009 - 22:44

By the way, I hear there's a large NW contingency in this guild. I actually went to school in Portland but just moved back home to San Francisco after graduation. Missing the northwest, great place.

Yes there is. Did you go to

cromi — Thu, 07/16/2009 - 11:37

Yes there is. Did you go to UP or PSU or Lewis and Clark?

I went to UP.

Megawalrus — Thu, 07/16/2009 - 13:45

I went to UP.

I've been a defensive

Megawalrus — Wed, 07/15/2009 - 17:07

I've been a defensive midfielder my whole life but was recruited as a right and left back. It was a tough adjustment but its a pretty simple position to play. I tore a ligament in my ankle my freshman year and had to redshirt but no busted knees!

I like your UI. You've

Prime8 — Wed, 07/15/2009 - 12:08

I like your UI. You've definitely spent more time setting it up than our usual apps.

One suggestion I will make, you can ditch the attack button on your 1 keybinding. Make macros for your judgement, CS, DS, etc that start with /startattack. I know that the hardest part as melee dps is when there's so much shit going on around you, its hard to keep track of which mob you're actually targeting, and whether or not you're attacking it (blame the DKs, I do).

edit: I just saw all your mounts on your action bar. You need this: /node/5895

Im a healer and I still have

Desteran — Wed, 07/15/2009 - 14:04

Im a healer and I still have 1 bound to auto-attack! Does that make me a bad player? :-D

Bad Player

Derchlon — Wed, 07/15/2009 - 16:13

@Zildo: Yes, yes you are.

Now, about Grid... basically, all you need is to make sure that you have raid debuff on. This is what tells you particular fight mechanic stuff, such as armor debuff stacks on tanks, a magic that needs to be dispelled, etc. This can be done by going into Grid options, then find the option for "center icon", scroll down to raid debuff and check mark it.

After that, the rest is all just configuring how it looks. Its always nice to have a sexy looking grid imo.

Thanks Derchlon, that helps

Megawalrus — Wed, 07/15/2009 - 16:45

Thanks Derchlon, that helps a lot. There isn't any "raid debuff" to check in the center icon tab so i just checked all of the options available for debuff (curse, disease, magic, etc...). I can already see how this is going to make things a lot better.

I think its an additional

Prime8 — Wed, 07/15/2009 - 20:41

I think its an additional addon, to show the raid debuff, it should be in the addon pack if you got grid from there. If not I believe its called Grid status raid debuff. Honestly you're going to get annoyed with grid showing everything (especially things you can't cleanse), but if you're planning on tanking, you're going to want to see the raid debuff. Think of a fight like Thorim where he puts dick punch (? no idea what its called) on one tank, you'll need to see it immediately to know when to taunt. The important thing to know is that even if you have it set to show everything (magic, poison, disease, curse), alot of boss abilities still won't show up, because they are specifically raid debuffs, so they will only show up on grid as such. If you need help finding the option or appropriate grid addon catch me in game.

Yeah, I didn't have the

Megawalrus — Thu, 07/16/2009 - 11:33

Yeah, I didn't have the small addon from the guild raid package. Ive installed it now and its all ready to go, thanks!

"dick punch"

Jayel — Wed, 07/15/2009 - 20:58

That would be unbalancing strike I believe or something close.. though I do like your name for it better. And yes there is an addon to grid called gridStatusRaidDebuff to get those as an option. You can also get grid to see who has sacred shield and a host of other things.

Hey Prime8, I'm glad you

Megawalrus — Wed, 07/15/2009 - 14:01

Hey Prime8,

I'm glad you like it. I have a huge addon fetish but I haven't really gotten deep into the world of macros yet. I tried yours out for the mounts and I couldn't get it to function unfortunately. I did, however, install pokedex based on saedo's recommendation (hope you're not offended :P). That macro for /startattack is huge, it will definitely be a mainstay. Sometimes it seems like in ret we don't even have enough buttons to press to fill up our standard key bindings but I'm sure I'll come up with something useful to replace the "attack" key on #1 with. I also have just switched from the xperl raid frames to grid since its so heavily recommended by everyone in the guild. Configuring it seems kind of daunting at the moment so I could use some help with the basic setup if anybody has any opinions. I'm not using it for healing so I guess I just need it to tell me the basic "what's going on" info. Any suggestions?

Hey Prime8, I'm glad you

Megawalrus — Wed, 07/15/2009 - 14:00

Hey Prime8,

OUCH MY PRIDE! No I'm just

Prime8 — Wed, 07/15/2009 - 20:47

OUCH MY PRIDE! No I'm just kidding. I think you might have forgotten to change the values for the values on your character specific mount screen. I should probably post a better description on how that works. If you're still interested in using the macro (it does use less resources than an addon), check the topic again a little later, I'll have something up.

edit: At least you aren't a druid. I have no idea how that macro would look for flight form. Just playing around with it I haven't been able to get that working.

http://www.downfallguild.org/

Ghli — Wed, 07/15/2009 - 16:23

/node/5719

That will get you started with what Grid does as out from the raid package that we provide. Grid can show more things than what is shown, like curses as a purple dot, diseases as brown, magical debuffs as blue, etc (but they're not shown currently since there is no one cursed, diseased, etc in that screen shot), You can also make it show an additional 3 more icons on EVERY corner for whatever you desire.

Badass, I love it. Thanks

Megawalrus — Wed, 07/15/2009 - 16:50

Badass, I love it. Thanks man.

After looking over your ret

Dragon — Wed, 07/15/2009 - 05:28

After looking over your ret gear it looks like spec/gear/glyph wise you made the changes. Hang out in dfrecruit and try to get into some heroics as prot or ret. Remember to stay active on the site and also to stay active in dfrecruit that way you can get to know more guildies.

Definitely will do, thanks

Megawalrus — Wed, 07/15/2009 - 10:53

Definitely will do, thanks Gimpy.

Ok I'm in my Ret gear at the moment

Megawalrus — Wed, 07/08/2009 - 01:49

I've changed to my ret gear/spec so you can check it out on armory. Few thing to note: My ret gear is awful and I know it. It hasn't been my priority until the dual spec officially came out in 3.1. With that being said, please look at the pic of my uploaded UI in order to understand that I can still punch out exceptional dps in such poor gear. I am working everyday to upgrade and I'm enjoying watching my dps climb. Lastly, I also have a complete set of healing gear that is far superior to my ret since it is much easier to come by. My ultimate goal is to fulfill any raid position necessary regardless of respec costs. Once my 72 mage reaches 80 I can also perform the role of ranged dps allowing me to fulfill pretty much every raid position except for aoe/raid healing. This is not so I can loot whore as much gear as possible; it is simply because I truly take pleasure in playing whatever role is necessary to help my team as much as possible.

Ah yes, my line of work

Dragon — Wed, 07/08/2009 - 05:32

Well looks like you have a carbon copy of my spec in terms of PvE. Whether that is your own doing or someone told you to copy me doesn't matter the big thing is that ya got the spec to begin with.

Now for the fun part.

#1. From yesterday that I didn't get a chance to put up here. Drop the Spiritual Attunement glyph and pick up Glyph of Seal of Vengeance. It will put you at the soft expertise cap effectively taking dodges off the table for the boss which means more threat for you.

The Rest will be Ret

#2. It's like 20g at times but pick up (Minor) Glyph of Blessing of Might. Great for dailies and for when the rest of your paladins want wisdom and you want a decent might but don't wanna have to refresh it every 10 minutes.

#3. You are an enchanter, so changing to Beserking on your Axe shouldn't be too expensive for you and Death's bite is actually pretty dang good before Ulduar raiding.

#4. Let's go ahead and change your meta gem to a Relentless Earthsiege Diamond and change everything but your Siren's Tear (+6 stats one in your shoulders) to 16 str gems. It until Late T7 25m Content or Ulduar that socket bonuses start yielding close to better results than what a straight up str gem will give you.

#5. You are over hit cap by about 70ish but since prot is your main spec this doesn't surprise me. Just giving you the relative heads up about it.

#6. HUGE one here. Change to Glyph of Consecration over Glyph of Seal of Blood. Glyph of Consecration is currently almost tied with judgement as our best glyph.

#7. I won't ask you to go read all the Elitist Jerks ret threads, I'm even behind myself. However I would suggest that you go and you download RAWR from here. In fact you should learn to love it for all 3 paladin specs as it allows you to pull yourself off armory. Set up the buffs that your 25m (or 10m) raid has and maximize your gear for those buffs. Added to that you can find out great upgrade paths for you.

If you have anymore questions please post them here or find me in game on Seraphitalia, Intercepter or Aleidia and I will be more than happy to answer them.

Late Addition #8. Pick up a random someone for 2v2 and pvp your way up to 1300 and pick up the Deadly Gladiators Libram for Retribution. It is 2nd best in slot only coming in behind the Furious one atm.

Hey Angel

Megawalrus — Wed, 07/08/2009 - 14:51

Thank you very much for your advice, I've done everything I can at the moment to make the improvements you've suggested. Check out my armory and take a look.

1. I changed out the glyph and tanked VoA today and noticed a great difference. My threat was higher and mana was never an issue. It did, however, of hover around 50% which I'm understanding is perfectly okay. Gotta say I've got my finger ready for a mana pot though!

2. I picked up the blessing of might glyph to fill up all the spots.

3. I am an enchanter and I do have the pattern for Berserking so I picked up a few more abyss crystals and threw that bad boy on Death's Bite. I had it on my old weapon demise, just hadn't gotten around to it on my new weapon yet.

4. I switched my meta socket to the relentless earthsiege like you recommended but I'm a little confused by your advice to change to all +16 str gems. I'm under the impression that the only color slot for gemming +16 str gems is red with Bold Scarlet Rubies. I understand that strength is the most important to gem for at this point which is why every gem I have has strength on them. If I'm missing something please let me know because I'm pretty sure I have the most amount of strength from gems as possible without using an epic gem.

5. Yeah I know, its kind of bitter sweet. On one hand I don't have to worry about hit but the on the other hand whenever I get a gear upgrade with more hit I know its wasted itemization.

6. Glyphed and ready to go.

7. I actually love elitist jerks. It's mainly what helped me make the big switch from healadin to tank a while back and it has helped me greatly with the addition of dual spec and building my ret platform. It was from these discussions where I learned the optimal pve ret build for ulduar which I understand you have as well :). As far as Rawr, when I first heard about it I knew I would have to use it. Unfortunately, I use a mac and they haven't developed it for the mac OS yet. They have developed some sort of weaker version of it for macs where you use an addon to simulate windows, but I haven't gotten it to function at all yet. I've heard its great though and I'm hoping they can fix the bugs soon.

8. My IRL buddy is almost done leveling his deathknight and we'll be doing some arena as soon as he caps. I looked up that libram you recommended and it will be first on my list!

Again, I really appreciate your time and effort on me. I hope you can see that I am willing to learn more and capable of putting the work in to get my game where it needs to be.

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Poll

What do you think about no flying for an entire expansion?

YES) It makes me feel more immersed in the game lore.

15%

YES) It encourages more PvP! (Please explain how in comments)

YES) I miss riding my ground mounts.

MAYBE) If you make all of my flying mounts able to be ground too.

MAYBE) if ground mounts are sped up to 200% speed (or higher)

26%

NO) I don't have enough time when I'm on to be riding everywhere

NO) I have spent too much time getting various levels of flying to be wasting it.

11%

NO) It encourages more PVP! (please explain in the comments)

NO) I love flying.

19%

Total votes: 74