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The Light and How to Swing It: Why retribution DPS is a-okay
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! Towards the tail end of Ulduar and into the beginning of Trial of the Crusader, I was in a guild that had a rogue that would consistently top the DPS charts. I would run so many heroics and PuG raids to get gear, all the while practicing what could laughably be called our "rotation" in retrospect, and I would still fall short. Over time, however, I began to notice that even though I wasn't beating him, I was beating many others. Soon the time came when I was neck-and-neck with him, always biting his heels and waiting for him to allow me an opportunity to beat him, once and for all. When I eventually did overtake him and saw my character's name on the top of Recount, the feeling was greater than any boss kill. You can't ever see a boss collapse and have the feeling that you did that all by yourself, that you were the sole reason for this victory, because it took a combination of other players, all supporting each other, to see that end result. The DPS race is totally different -- aside from healers keeping you alive (which, if you're properly aware of your surroundings and your threat, shouldn't be an issue) you shoulder the responsibility to push out as much damage as you can. Seeing yourself at the top is a much more personal victory because you can honestly say that you did that, that you pulled yourself up there and truly earned that spot. And from what I understand, this is not a unique experience. I have talked to quite a few players who have expressed concern over some fairly recent SimulationCraft results that show retribution ranking near the bottom out of all available DPS specs. Even ignoring SimCraft, many more players have expressed concern over their damage output as they compare it to their fellow raiders, guildmates, and random DPSers in LFR. Despite this mounting evidence, I have asserted that retribution is in a nice place -- not great, not OP, but comfortable. Indeed, Ghostcrawler tends to feel the same way. So what's the story here? Why does it seem like everyone and their uncle think ret is doing poorly?
Spiritual Guidance: Shadow priests react to patch 4.1, look forward to 4.2
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Spiritual Guidance for discipline, holy and shadow priests. Every Wednesday, shadow priesting expert Fox Van Allen takes you down the only road he's ever been down. You know, the one that takes you to the places where all the veins meet, yeah. Shortly after patch 4.1 went live last Tuesday, I got the chance to raid Bastion of Twilight. I tried out Mind Sear on the first pull, and the numbers were absolutely luscious. Instead of weak, ugly, sub-2,000 ticks, I was seeing ticks twice that size. Before long, I was gaming my trash rotations, trying to proc Empowered Shadow and keep it up through the pulls. It was terrific practice for Cho'gall -- I finally felt like my AoE was making an impact on that encounter. Overall, I got praise for the improved numbers I was putting out (thanks, Mind Sear!). But that praise got me thinking -- how is the rest of the shadow priest community faring in the post-4.1 world? And with patch 4.2 around the corner ... is there anything about shadow priests that Blizzard still needs to fix?
The Daily Quest: Automatic Points
We here at WoW.com are on a Daily Quest to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere. If you choose that category to talk about the race change or patch 3.3, you are automatically awarded the points. Restokin on the the latest druid change and the new LFG/LFR system. Gray Matter takes a look at a new simulation tool gaining some attention, SimCraft. Diabolical Minds takes a look at the hybrid tax. Eviscerated has a nice list to level your enchanting from 1 to 450. Finally, Azeroth United is interviewing Kristin Lindsay of Child's Play on November 2rd during a UStream broadcast. They're also raising money for Child's Play, and you can support them over on their site. A good cause for a good charity. Click here to submit a link to TDQ
CES 2009: Hands (and butt)-on with the SimCraft APEX
We love showing you the pieces of technology that will forever change the way you game. Sadly, they don't show those things at CES, so we're relegated to showing you really cool crap that you'll never own. The SimCraft APEX is just such a device, a simulator designed to give you the sensation of hurtling around a track in a race car or (with some slight modifications) flying a plane.We put the APEX SC830 through its paces at CES and have to admit the effect is pretty impressive, or at least it is on the racing side, the only one available to try at the show. Utilizing roll, pitch and yaw and three wrap-around monitors, it was probably the most fun one could have playing a racing game. But fun's not necessarily the primarily goal here. SimCraft boss T. Christopher Ciesielka told us that they're promoting it as a training tool for law enforcement, military and race car drivers, though they had discovered at the show that there was a high-end audience that wouldn't mind having it as part of their home entertainment setup.What's that? You want one? Oh, well just pony up $45,000 and you'll be off to the races. It may seem a little high, but you should know: That also includes the computer. Tempting, no?
