The Light and How to Swing It: Tanking the first 3 bosses of Dragon Soul

Dragon Soul entrance

Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Protection specialist Matt Walsh spends most of his time receiving concussions for the benefit of 24 other people, obsessing over his hair (a blood elf racial!), and maintaining the tankadin-focused blog Righteous Defense.

In the previous weeks, we’ve talked about getting prepped for patch 4.3, how to hit the ground running, and what pieces of gear should be on your hit list. Now we’ve come to the main event: the Dragon Soul raid. Deathwing’s forces are assaulting Wyrmrest Temple, and it’s up to you and your allies to knock them over and finally put a stop to his perfidy. The fights ahead will test your skills and the limits of your survivability. You’ll also be taunt swapping like you’ve never taunt swapped before (which is its own kind of exciting).

Morchok

Morchok is a fairly simple encounter (and “fairly” is being generous). Consider it the Lootreaver of Dragon Soul.

When you pull Morchok, turn him away from the raid. His Stomp attack will split damage among all targets within 25 yards, but the two closest (that is, you and your co-tank) get a double share of the damage. So unless you’re trying to play Kill the DPS, face the boss away.

You and your co-tank will be swapping at around two or three stacks of the Crush Armor debuff. Each stack reduces your armor by 20 seconds, so don’t allow it to stack too high. Usually I’ll take the boss first, co-tank taunts at two stacks, and then taunt when my stacks fall off, and we continue to taunt when stacks drop off there on out.

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The Light and How to Swing It: Tanking the first 3 bosses of Dragon Soul originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 16 Dec 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Light and How to Swing It: Blinding Ultraxion with the Holy Light

ultraxion

Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Every Sunday, Chase Christian invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. Feel free to email me with any questions you want answered, like why paladins are so awesome.

As the fifth boss of Dragon Soul, Ultraxion is the gateway boss to pursuing Deathwing and stopping the second cataclysm. While Thrall and the dragon aspects are busy with the Dragon Soul itself, we’re tasked with defending Wyrmrest Temple from Ultraxion’s assaults. Simple, right?

Ultraxion is an incredibly simple fight for tanks and damage dealers. In fact, it’s already being called the Patchwerk-fight of this tier. Aside from a few extra button presses, non-healers are simply tasked with bringing Ultraxion down as quickly as possible. Healers, on the other hand, play a very special role in this fight. We’re fighting against rapidly increasing AoE damage to the raid, and the aspects themselves step in to help us accomplish our task. Ultraxion is the healer-centric fight of this tier, like Baleroc and Chimaeron before him.

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The Light and How to Swing It: Blinding Ultraxion with the Holy Light originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 11 Dec 2011 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Light and How to Swing It: The new tanking gear of patch 4.3

Begging the valor point vendor

Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Protection specialist Matt Walsh spends most of his time receiving concussions for the benefit of 24 other people, obsessing over his hair (a blood elf racial!), and maintaining the tankadin-focused blog Righteous Defense.

Last week, we talked about what you needed to know to prepare for the dawning of the Hour of Twilight. Now let’s talk about what shiny new purples you can expect to rip from the still-warm carcasses that will lie in your wake as your cut a swath through the new content.

Our itemization goals haven’t changed since 4.2. Mastery is still king, and threat stats are still to be avoided. In the list below, I didn’t list the gear in any particular order, so don’t expect the top choice to be the best. Indeed, the best piece will depend on how much mastery you have and thus how close you are to block cap.

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The Light and How to Swing It: The new tanking gear of patch 4.3 originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 09 Dec 2011 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Light and How to Swing It: Raid gear for ret paladins in Dragon Soul

Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Seasoned ret paladin Dan Desmond is here to answer your questions and provide you with your biweekly dose of retribution medicine. Contact him at dand@wowinsider.com with any questions, concerns, or suggestions!

Before we begin talking about upgrades in Dragon Soul, we need to discuss the three separate tiers of raid gear available in patch 4.3. Thanks to the introduction of the Raid Finder, a lower tier of the same gear that drops from normal and heroic Dragon Soul is readily available to those who queue for it. This lower tier is of ilevel 384, the same level gear that drops from Ragnaros on normal difficulty. If you had done any heroic Firelands raiding and got some gear, you will find that the Raid Finder tier is seven ilevels behind that gear.

For most pieces, you will want to upgrade as normal (from 378 to 384, for example). For tier gear, however, it appears that the new two-piece T13 set bonus overpowers the itemization difference between heroic T12 and Raid Finder gear, at least for now. If you’re available to do additional testing, I’m sure the theorycrafters at the Elitist Jerks retribution thread would adore you for contributing. For the time being, I would pick up some lower-ilevel tier and test it out while still holding onto your heroic T12. Remember, four-piece T13 is our ultimate goal here, so don’t skimp on those loot rolls.

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The Light and How to Swing It: Raid gear for ret paladins in Dragon Soul originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 07 Dec 2011 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Know Your Lore: Archbishop Benedictus of the Holy Light – Joystiq

Know Your Lore: Archbishop Benedictus of the Holy Light
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The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how — but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your

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The Light and How to Swing It: The best patch 4.3 gear for your holy paladin

tier 2 paladin set

Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Every Sunday, Chase Christian invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. Feel free to email me with any questions you want answered, like why paladins are so awesome.

The itemization team at Blizzard has been especially stingy when it comes to holy paladin drops in Dragon Soul. While there were hundreds of items added in patch 4.3, very few of them are ideal for holy paladins. We’re used to this sort of treatment though, as we’re the only special snowflake spec that requires its own set of gear. No other class wants to wear intellect plate, and there’s nothing more frustrating for a raid group than seeing the same plate healing gloves drop every single week. A few character slots have a limited number of items available, but there’s an upgrade for every single piece of gear you have today.

Between blacksmiths, the valor points vendor, and Dragon Soul bosses, there are still plenty of gear for us to lust after. There are also new epic gems available from the Dragon Soul bosses that we can adorn our gear with, making us more powerful than ever. Our overall gearing strategy hasn’t changed much since the last patch, although mastery rating is a bit better due to the new design of Holy Radiance. I am favoring spirit as the best secondary stat, with haste close behind. Critical strike rating and mastery rating are a toss-up; you can pick your favorite.

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The Light and How to Swing It: The best patch 4.3 gear for your holy paladin originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 04 Dec 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Light and How to Swing It: 3 things tankadins need to know

Tier 13

Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Protection specialist Matt Walsh spends most of his time receiving concussions for the benefit of 24 other people, obsessing over his hair (a Blood Elf racial!), and maintaining the tankadin-focused blog Righteous Defense.

Patch 4.3 is upon us, and the Hour of Twilight has come. Once more, it falls to us rugged men and women of plate-covered action to strap on our Bulwarks of Azzinoth (because, seriously, what other shield would you transmogrify to?) and march into the fray. Deathwing’s assault on Azeroth is coming to a head, and to make sure we’re ready for the challenges beyond, we need to be as prepared as possible.

4.3 is a pretty tame patch when it comes to class changes — no nerfs or buffs galore … my kind of patch. Nonetheless, there are three key things you need to know about the patch to bring your absolute best to the table. Let’s dig in.

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The Light and How to Swing It: 3 things tankadins need to know originally appeared on WoW Insider on Fri, 02 Dec 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Light and How to Swing It: Latest holy paladin preview for Mists of Pandaria

paladin talents

Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Every Sunday, Chase Christian invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. Feel free to email me with any questions you want answered, like why paladins are so awesome.

The official Mists of Pandaria talent calculators were released by Blizzard recently, including a list of each talent tree’s abilities. By diving into the skill list and analyzing the talents, there is a lot of information available. Most of the information is old, as we learned about many of the changes at BlizzCon and in the developer question and answer sessions.

It’s hard to draw any concrete conclusions from the talent preview because the Blizzard team has stated that everything is still up in the air. Since the information is still in a pre-alpha state, I can guarantee you that what we’re seeing today will be changed dramatically by the time Mists of Pandaria is released. While we can’t make any firm predictions, we can gain some insight into the direction that holy paladins are headed, and we can offer feedback to the developers on that direction.

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The Light and How to Swing It: Latest holy paladin preview for Mists of Pandaria originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sun, 27 Nov 2011 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Light and How to Swing It: 4 trends for tanks apparent in the new MoP talent calculator

New talent calculator

Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Protection specialist Matt Walsh spends most of his time receiving concussions for the benefit of 24 other people, obsessing over his hair (a Blood Elf racial!), and maintaining the tankadin-focused blog Righteous Defense.

On Wednesday, Blizzard released the preview of the Mists of Pandaria talent calculator, and while other classes were gleefully ripping through it like kids under a Christmas tree, the paladins were scrutinizing and trying to figure out exactly what had changed — looking for interesting divots in the chunk of coal, if you will.

I guess Blinding Shield is confirmed as our level 87 spell (though we’ve been there before, yes?), and Speed of Light is even more obviously the best first-tier talent choice. There are some minor things here and there, however, that tend to point toward larger trends that will hold sway over our beloved spec in the next expansion. In today’s column, I’ll dissect those trends along with all the evidence that points toward them and forms the foundations of what we can expect.

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The Light and How to Swing It: 4 trends for tanks apparent in the new MoP talent calculator originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sat, 26 Nov 2011 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Light and How to Swing It: Dealing damage in Dragon Soul heroic dungeons

Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Seasoned ret paladin Dan Desmond is here to answer your questions and provide you with your biweekly dose of retribution medicine. Contact him at dand@wowinsider.com with any questions, concerns, or suggestions!

This new series of heroics runs akin to the Forge of Souls, Pit of Saron, and Halls of Reflection trio of Wrath in that you must complete them in a specific order. In the interest of fitting all of these encounters in one post, I will need to truncate a lot of descriptions and irrelevant details. If you have any questions or suggestions for your fellow ret paladins, please feel free to drop a comment below!

Warning: This post contains strategies and brief descriptions of the new heroic dungeons in patch 4.3 that may or may not be spoiler-esque. As always with my columns, proceed with caution.

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The Light and How to Swing It: Dealing damage in Dragon Soul heroic dungeons originally appeared on WoW Insider on Wed, 23 Nov 2011 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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