That AoE was brutal; the only reason I survived was because (a) I was getting patented Shadow Priest life-sucking healing and (b) I bubbled and did my herbalism heal pretty much instantly on seeing my life dip below half.
Yeah I’m not sure the strategy for fighting that. I told Mordrin (healer) that he was going to have to work hard for that fight, and he did a good job at keeping me healed up enough to finish of the boss after he and most of the party died. I kept expecting to get tossed in the air but it didn’t happen.
Having a Shadow Priest is sweet, though, the extra healing and mana really speeds things up.
I vaguely recall spamming group heals when I noticed everyone’s life dropping the one time I did Underbog but honestly I don’t remember anything specific from the fight except that I got thrown up into the air at the end and forgot to levitate myself.
Apparently the WoW store at the official website has the gryphon and windrider plushes in (and if you buy them, you get a corresponding in-game non-combat pet). I don’t know if you can be Horde and get the gryphon in-game pet and vice-versa, though.
ETA: Just checked the cached page on Google and you can get both or either of them, regardless of your faction.
You can. A guildie of mine ordered both pets, and there’s an note from Blizzard somewhere that specifies that yes, you can have a lil’ flyer from the other side if you like. $25 each.
I’ve got a Protection secondary spec on Kalathan, my level 80 Ret paladin. I too would love to learn how to use it better. The problem I keep running into when I try Prot is that my mana drains so fast … although that’s probably because most of my gear is STR/STAM bonuses, rather than INT.
On my baby pally I basically always tank with the “give me more mana” seal on. (I forget its name). That plus heals plus blessing of sanctuary plus using my BElf racial every time it comes off cooldown seems to keep me reasonably topped up. (Course I’m only in my mid-50s right now).
You shouldn’t need to gem for Int as a prot pally – use Seal/Judgement of Wisdom and give yourself Blessing of Sanctuary, which returns mana to you when you get hit. At least, that works for Rillian at 64, I don’t know if it’s that much different at 80.
I forgot to mention, I’ve been playing my new Holy paladin a little bit - up to level 12 so far. I’ve discovered two things about being a holy pally:
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It takes me forever to kill things, since it’s judge, auto-attack, auto-attack, auto-attack, judge, auto-attack, auto-attack, auto-attack, jugde… It did help that I got the BoA 1H mace for him, which does much better damage than the newbie sword I started with.
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I’m nearly unkillable, especially now with three points in the talent that prevents spell pushback. Every time I get down to 50% health, I cast Flash of Light on myself to get back to nearly full, and keep auto-attacking/judging. Last night I took on 4 at-level mobs and finished the fight at full health and about 90% mana. It’s crazy! But slow, since it takes so long to kill things.
I had to look up on WoWWiki what the last boss of Underbog was, because I couldn’t remember for the life of me! I think the best strat is to basically spread out as best you can around him and ignore the adds while you try to burn him down as fast as possible. I remember trying to do that fight at level the first time and got smoked repeatedly, so cheers on the successful first kill. Shadow priests are awesome, though they were so much more awesome back in TBC. Basically couldn’t run a raid without having at least 3 (1 for each group of mana users).
I’ve been debating about whether or not I should get one (or both) of these pets. Probably won’t since my ladyfriend hates WoW and would mock me mercilessly. Glad to hear you can get either regardless of faction. I love that Blizzard donated over a million dollars to charity from their sale of in-game pets. Blizzard has always been a stand up company, which is why I’ve been loyal to them for over half my life.
If you’re level 80, you basically just need to follow Skammer’s advice but also use Divine Plea. You should also use the Glyph of Divine Plea since it’s a flat 3% reduction in damage. With the talent Guarded by the Light, you will refresh it’s duration everytime you hit something, so will be generating mana at a constant rate. This, with the mana you’re receiving from Judgment of Wisdom and Blessing of Sanctuary can keep you with decent mana for a while, but your real mana returns come from being healed (by someone else) via points in the talent Spiritual Attunement. Usually 1/2 is fine, but if you have mana issues in an instance, you can put another point in there. If you’re STILL having mana issues, then there are some glyphs that reduce the mana cost of some spells (like Shield of Righteousness), but it shouldn’t be a problem.
As for actually playing a Protadin (my favorite class to tank on, though I need to level a warrior and try them out for real instead of just trying it on a friend’s toon), there is a very basic rotation that you need to know and you’ll be golden. It’s called the 969 rotation (specifics can be found here: http://elitistjerks.com/f76/t37172-protection_paladin_field_manual_wow_3_0_wotlk/p58/#post1336981). Basically, you have 3 spells with 9 second cooldowns (Judgment - when talented 1/2 Improved Judgments in the Retribution tree, Consecration, and Holy Shield) and 2 spells with 6 second cooldowns (Shield of Righteousness (SoR) and Hammer of the Righteous (HotR)). So, you alternate between the 9 second spells and 6 second spells.
Example: Holy Shield - SoR - Judgment - HotR - Consecration - SoR - Holy Shield - HotR - etc.
This is the highest threat rotation possible. You can always break the rotation if you need to taunt or grab some more mobs, etc., and once you get into the rhythm of it, it will be very difficult for DPS to pull off of you (unless they outgear you by quite a bit). Have fun tanking, it really is a blast on a paladin.
Wow, I don’t think I could ever level as Holy. Kudos to you for having the patience. I leveled as Prot on my paladin, and basically was kiting groups of mobs from 20-70. Fun, and fairly fast. Definitely got me into practice of changing Seals/Judgments (which is now moot). Holy paladins are damn near impossible to kill, though, as you’ve found out, but I’d suggest getting a second spec as Ret if you want to get through it faster. Good luck, regardless of what you choose to do.
Don’t gear for INT always gear for STAM, Defense then Hit\Expertise\STR. Mana for Prot Pallys comes from abilities namely Judging Wisdom, Blessing of Sanctuary (mana on block, parry or dodge), Divine Plea (which will always be up with the Guarded By The Light talent) and finally the optional one Spiritual Attunement which gives you mana when you’re healed.
Holy at that level is commendable. At 80 and with the full intent of Healing in heroics after levelling up as Protection I am now only just beginning to quest as Holy. The difference is marked so it depends how patient I am but I’d say I can kill about 10 mobs (all at once of course) as Prot in the time it takes me to kill one mob as Holy and that’s with the added tool of Holy Shock which when it crits can pack quite a punch.
I have to disagree about the impossible to kill bit though but with the caveat that in PvP this is not the case. I have a quest in my log to kill Horde in Icecrown so I am flagged as PvP and now have been killed 3 times by other players while specced Holy whereas I have killed the two players that jumped me when I was specced as Prot. Probably a lot to do with me being more used to Prot mechanics at the moment.
Regarding my Holy Pally – my intention is to level largely through healing instances, and only solo quest while waiting in the DF queue. Which, as a healer, I’m hoping won’t usually be very long. So once I get to level 15 and use the DF it won’t matter much how quickly I can kill things, just how quickly and how long I can heal things.
I’m also questing in Tirisfal (and about to move on to Silverpine) which is fun for a change; I haven’t done that since my first Horde toon. Everyone else has gone through the Blood Elf starting zones. It’s easier to quest there, maybe, but the change is nice.
Grouping can work out great. I had 2 quests left in Lakeridge - 2 heads required from the orcs near the barracks and fangores paw. Arrived at the 1st location at the same time as 2 other guys, grouped up off teh cuff and blew through all 3 quests. Was nice to have a quick productive group!. Off to Duskwood now.
Did the Kharanos to Iron Forge to Deep Tram to Stormwind run for the Elders of the Alliance achievement which lead to finishing off the whole Honor those old Dwarven Dudes holiday. I did not die, let alone being attacked by any Alliance players. Only had to kill one NPC guard in Stormwind that kept having a crush on my toon. The amazing thing is that I did this during prime time last night since I really didn’t want to wait till O’Dark Hundred to do this.
Ok, now that’s out of the way…what do I need to do to start the ICC quests and get AV rep? Is it solo or group or both?
Hah, I think those were some of the first quests I ever grouped up for, too! I wish I could remember the names of the people who helped me out–I’d love to look 'em up and see what they’re doing these days.
There are no ICC quests, unless you count the raid weeklies and/or the quest chain to get the Legendary item. All of the rep comes from killing things, so you definitely need a raid group.
You’ll occasionally see people advertising in trade chat for “ICC rep runs” - I think this means they go into the raid instance, kill the trash, and reset it so they can gain a bunch of AV rep in a hurry.
Bingo. You can do at least five runs in a row up to Marrowgar, because you don’t get saved until you kill a boss. (You’re still constrained by the “you can only enter five unique dungeons per hour” limit, though, so if you clear all the trash in less than 12 minutes per run, you’ll have to wait a while before you can do it a sixth time.)
And if you’re clearing the ICC trash up to Marrowgar in less than 12 minutes per run, then you might as well just keep going because you’ve easily got the DPS to stomp all over the place! 
I just started playing the demo/trial version of WOW, and it’s definitely a time-suck game, even in solitary/quest mode, I’m considering paying for a subscription, but i’m hesitant as $15/mo is a bit more than I was expecting (at $5 or $10/mo i’d consider it)
So far, I’ve set up three characters, all relatively low-level
Level 5 Minotaur/Tauren named “UncleDeadly”, because his beard looks like that infamous Muppet
Level 5 Human Warlock named “FredKrueger”
Level 7 Dwarf named “NacMacFeegle” (I was amazed that name was even available) and he’s currently my favourite, Bigjobs!
I’m even considering creating an Atheist Druid or Atheist Priest “I Believe in nothing!” 
I have to say that one of the most infuriating ( 
) things for me, as a ret paladin, is being about halfway through one of my “kill X number of mobs” quests, only to have a prot pally run past me gathering up every single remaining mob and AoE-ing them all down. Actually, DKs are pretty bad about that too.
Let me just say this: playing WoW, even with the $15/mo subscription, has actually been a money saver for me. I pay my $15 and stay at home playing WoW instead of going out and spending considerably more money on other things.
Shouldn’t he have been a gnome? 
There’s a guild on one of my servers called Nac Mac Feegle.
Auction House “fun”: I decided to go and sell off my stock of Ebonweave (normally goes for around 105g) and Spellweave (140g), only to discover dumbasses selling theirs for 60g and 75g, respectively. I looked at the chain of undercutting on the Ebonweave, and everything above the 60g stuff was at least “reasonable” undercutting, each lower price no more than 1 or 2g lower than the one above. Until it got down to 75g, and this one dumbass undercuts by 15g to sell for 60g :mad: Fuck that. I posted my stuff for 104g and and 139g, and I’m stickin’ to it.
After I bitched in Trade about the stupid undercutting, somebody pointed out that those special cloths are going to be practically worthless after the next patch removes the cooldown on making it, and so people are dumping their stock. Why does Blizzard do that shit? You spend money leveling a crafting profession and then Blizz pulls the rug out from under you. How are tailors going to make money now? This person said Blizz wants to make it easier for people to buy better gear. Okay, well, are they going to do something similar to make Primordial Saronite stupidly inexpensive so plate wearers can also buy good gear on the cheap?
Also, speaking of Primordial Saronite, how does Blizzard handwave continuing to call cloth armor “cloth armor” when the iLvl 264 tailoring patterns call for 12 bars of Primordial Saronite?
At the opposite end of the fuckwit scale, I discovered some asshat had posted a crapload of single Infinite Dusts for more than 400,000g each, for no apparent reason other than to screw with people’s AH addons (since a single character can’t even have more than something like 214,000g, 400,000 is literally an impossible price). Is that kind of shit reportable? Now that I think about it, I think those auctions also had a ridiculously low starting bid price. I should have just placed bids of 1 copper over the starting bid price and cleaned out the guy’s stock on the cheap.