But I do it anyway because this is as much a journal for me as it is entertainment for them. So without further ado…

I’ve played a Retribution Paladin for a while now and put up with all that that entails.

Among other things, it means I get asked to heal more than I get to seek retribution on my foes.

It means I get kicked out of groups because my DPS isn’t up to par with Warriors and Rogues.

It means I’m mostly ridiculed in the community.

Even after working exceptionally hard and overcoming the gear curve, I was still reviled. Even though my damage was finally better than most of any DPS I could find in a pug, I was still the odd-man out.

That all changed Tuesday when Blizzard released Patch 2.3 – The Gods of Zul’Aman.

Retribution finally got its … well, retribution. Blizzard took a long hard look at Ret Pallies and buffed them up so that they could compete.

What does this mean? A lot of things, but mainly 3% more crit and 30% less threat. That’s all WoW math, but it basically means Ret Pallies can do a lot more damage in a group.

The first day I logged in after the patch, I was amazed to find myself standing atop the pile in my first Arathi Basin match. I did more damage than 39 other people. That’s amazing.

Last night I went into my first instance since the change and helped a pug clear Steamvaults. I demolished the other DPS in the raid. No one came close the damage I did.

All while maintaining my ability to heal and bless my fellow combatants.

Did they overpower the Ret Pally? Is it fair that a class that can already heal or tank also be outdamaging Rogues and Warriors?

Only time will tell. I expect there will be some nerfs in their future. No amount of nerfs, however, is likely to return the Ret Pally back to the hated spec he was before.

For now, life is good. I am playing a class and spec that is at the top of the heap. In an everchanging game of balance and tweaks, I know well that I must enjoy it while it lasts for nothing good lasts forever.

Blizzard is the best video game company ever.

Why, you ask?

Well among other things are the tasty Hallow’s End Pumpkin Treat that you can get by doing a few quests to help the orc orphans collect some candy.

These beauties give you a 20 minute costume for the festivities — it’s random, but always loads of fun.

Then there’s the innkeepers all set up for your trick-or-treating pleasure. Once per hour you can hit up an innkeeper for either a trick or a treat depending on your luck.

If you get tricked, you’ll probably get turned into a bat or a cat, and sometimes even a frog.

But if you get treated, you get a special bag of goodies ranging from candy to flimsy paper masks of one of the other races of Azeroth.

And new this year is the ability to summon and fight one of the kings of fright — the Headless Horseman.

First you fight his full body. Then his head comes off and you fight that. Then they join together and you fight them again. Fun times for everyone.

Even better are the awesome drops, such as the helm of the horseman shown right.

Though my paladin is an extremely well geared Ret Pally, this helm is an upgrade for her and I plan on squashing the horseman’s head until he lets me have this.

He also drops broom mounts, little pumpkin pets, and even a pumpkin helmet so you can walk around with a gourd on your melon. What’s better than that?

The festivities begin today and last until Nov 1st. That’s a lot of time to kill the horseman, collect candy, and dress up like a female draenei. Let the fun begin!

I was in Nagrand, helping the Mag’har tribe save their dead ancestors from being possessed by demons. It seemed like a the honorable (read: greedy) thing for a Blood Knight such as myself to do.

After I finished up that slightly messy task with the help of my wife and her pet velociraptor, I went to hang out with Greatmother Geyah and let her know that she owed me some bucks.

She went on about how the leader of their tribe, Garrosh Hellscream, was all down on himself because his daddy had drank the blood of a demon and doomed them all to be bloodthirsty buttheads.

“Waahh,” Garrosh says, “My daddy left me a rotten legacy. Wo is me!”

Then the name clicked. Hellscream…Hellscream…Where have I heard that name before? Oh right… etched right here on my axe:

“The axe of Grom Hellscream has sown terror across hundreds of battlefields.”

So it turns out that the Greatmother is the grandmother of Thrall, son of Durotan. I’d run into Thrall before, always trying to make him understand that we Blood Elves aren’t all that bad.

Thing is, Thrall didn’t know his Grandmother was alive. His dad had died when he was young, yada yada. Thrall was good friends with Grom Hellscream, though, even though Garrosh had never known his daddy.

So basically I decided to help the deranged family out.

“Look, granny, I’ll go tell Thrall that his grandmama is out here with his best friend’s son and I’m sure he’ll come set you all straight on the sitch,” I told her.

So I went to Orgrimmar and walked right into Thrall’s throne room. He has an open-door policy cuz he’s cool like that.

Thrall was like, “Granny’s alive!”

I’m like, “Yah. I took her gold.”

So Thrall tells me to go tell granny that he’s on his way. And sure enough, shortly after I get there he comes strolling into Garadar like he owns the place. A few minutes of hob-knobbing with his biggest fans, and Thrall wanders in to see granny.

Luckily they aren’t the private type, so I got to watch the whole thing. Granny’s all concerned the Mag’har are going to pot because Garrosh is a big emo sissy, always whining about how his daddy was a loser.

So Thrall never being one to let an Orc be emo, finds Garrosh and explains that although his daddy did drink demon blood and turn them all into buttheads, he also freed them from the same curse by defending the other orcs and defeating said demon with his trusty axe (that must have then gotten lost, because I totally have it strapped to my back).

Suddenly, Garrosh is all like, “I’m the son of a hero! Kneel before me, suckers!”

And that’s why I was late for work. I had to sort out the issues of my warchief’s family and friends. Being a Blood Knight is a tough job, but someone has to do it.

Best Warcraft quest line ever.

I also got a glimpse of the Ret Pally changes that are upcoming.  I’m excited about those.

They’re doing lots of interesting things with Instance keying as well, such that whole guilds may get keyed at once.  Also, keying one character on your account may in the future key them all.  I don’t know if that’s just for raids, or for heroics as well.

Zul’Aman looks to be a fun instance.  They didn’t go into too much detail about the gameplay and bosses, but they did show off some of the loot.  Looks like DPS Plate is back baby!

Also, they really like the epic crafter-only items for professions like blacksmithing and are adding others soon.  Jewelcrafting, for instance, is going to be able to make epic gems out of blue gems that only they can use.  Among others, one is a +18 stam gem.

They also hinted at potions that only alchemists would be able to drink.

There’s probably more, but I just drove to San Diego for the rest of the vacation so that’s it for now.  Not a fun blog post, I know, but time is of the essence!  Shamu is calling.

To my surprise, they actually had a playable demo on the showroom floor! The wife and I were able to get 20 minutes in the Howling Fjord — one of the entry zones into Northrend.

Interestingly (and wisely), Northrend will actually have two entry zones so not everyone will be crammed into the same zone come release day.

They went into pretty big detail about the game, showing off the Death Knight class and how it will work and fit into the game. It’s considered a “hero class” but it’s not a class that your character turns into.

Instead, you must do a questline (they compared it to the Warlock Epic Mount quest) and then you’re able to create new characters as Death Knights.

He’s supposed to be a tank/DPS hybrid who doesn’t need shields in order to tank effectively.

He doesn’t use rage, mana, or energy but instead is getting a new “rune” system which involves him inscribing runes onto his weapon to determine the spells he can cast during combat.

Aside from the new expansion, there was Starcraft 2.

Honestly, it feels very very early in development and some of their ideas for the single player “story mode” are kinda weird. The plan is to take the time between RTS missions to give you an adventure/RPG like interaction with characters.

My first thought was that it was kind of hokey. I hope they work it out. In their defense, it was pretty early on into development.

There were also tons of folk in costume, which I hope to post up when I get back from Cali. There’s just a couple of samples here for now.

Day 2 looks to be less hectic and certainly lower on the new information flood. I’ll blog about it… eventually.

Destination — the Anaheim Convention Center for Blizzard’s sporadic convention celebrating all things them: Blizzcon.

This is only the second Blizzcon. I desperately wanted to go to the first, but the logistics of getting to LA from Northern Virginia are somewhat daunting.

Not only is there a high cost involved with airfare and lodging, but there’s also the harder to come-by vacation time to scrounge up.

So what kind of fun do I get to have at Blizzcon? Aside from watching people dress up as blood elves, succubi, and orcs, there’s also numerous panels on all things Warcraft & Starcraft.

On top of that are the gameplay booths. I don’t know how these work or how much time you get, but I should get a few minutes to try out Starcraft II and the mysterious “new WoW content.”

Rumors abound that Blizzard may be announcing a new WoW expansion this Friday morning. I hope they do, as I’d love to be one of the first in the world to know about it!

And what do I get to take away with me? My very own Murloc suit to dress up in-game. I haven’t decided which of my characters gets the honor of donning the Murloc suit yet.

Also, I get a key to a future Blizzard beta. They don’t say for which game so it could be for Starcraft II or a new WoW expansion, or something else entirely. I can’t really lose either way.

So, the blog may actually go on a week long hiatus as I hit Blizzcon and then San Diego. I may blog when I care to, showing off pictures of the wacky people at Blizzcon and the animals of San Diego.

Vacations are good.

Check out this widget that sucks Armory data into an iframe for posting anywhere:

Now that’s cool.

This weekend I got my hands on Gorehowl, the epic axe of Grom Hellscream. He’s an uber dude from Warcraft lore, so his axe is pretty uber too.

As a matter of fact, his axe is one of the best weapons that a Retribution Paladin can get pre-25man raids — especially if said Ret Pally is not a blacksmith.

I was elated to get my hands on it, as it gets me one step closer to being a viable Ret Pally.

For those who don’t know, Ret Pallies are the laughing stock of WoW. Although lots of gear can bring decent damage, they are woefully behind the curve on being true DPSers.

After getting Gorehowl, I immediately changed from the respected Holy Spec to the shunned Retribution Spec. Afterall, I had the axe of frickin’ Grom Hellscream in my hands — how could I not destroy everything in my path?

There’s no denying that Gorehowl made a difference. It adds a whopping 98 attack power, plus an additional 70 from the Savagery enchant I put on it (it makes the axe drip blood — how cool is that?).

But was it a big enough difference? That remains to be seen, but even if it is I expect that I’ll still have trouble bringing the pain that my rogue, hunter, mage, and warlock allies can bring.

The gear requirements for a Ret Pally are just insane compared to other classes and specs. I don’t have enough time on my hands to become as awesome as I would like to.

I’m stuck with the question of whether I should stick to Ret because its fun, or Holy because its effective.

It’s a tough call.

Although Holy is all about healing and thus not a lot of fun, it’s extremely effective. The fun part comes in that I feel powerful, while with Ret I feel on the verge of powerful.

Note to Blizzard: Fix Ret Pallies. kthxbye.

For those who aren’t hip on the in-game holiday, alcohol is served up which causes all of the guards in a neutral city to fall asleep in a drunken stupor.

On a PVP server like Eredar, that means there’s now nothing to stop one from ganking all day long in such cities.

And that brings us to Booty Bay, where a handful of Synergy members got together to claim Booty Bay in the name of the guild.

It started with our young (but esteemed) resto Druid, Flowerpot, causing a stir all by himself. Enough beckoning and I headed out, though I had little mind to fight. I’m considered a carebear among my fellow guildmates.

Instead, I donned my Black Swashbuckler’s Shirt and some revealing pants and headed out with mug in hand to do some Blood Elf dancing in Booty Bay.

For a little while, the Alliance just kinda stared at me. Occasionally someone would shoot an arrow or I’d get a DoT placed on me, but they could all see I was unarmed and in a party mood so they let me be… for a little while.

Then one by one they got brave and decided to kill the fun-loving Blood Elf dancer. Flowerpot played along, and kept me alive through heals for a remarkable amount of time before I finally fell into that endless abyss of death.

Not really that endless, I rezzed and immediately resumed by dancing, hoping that they would get the hint. They didn’t.

Time to bring in the big dogs — Synergy heavy hitters, Poderoso, Worf, Sadrith (and I’m sure others I’m forgetting) decided to make an appearance and that’s when it was all over.

For a while I followed them around, still in my party clothes, crying at the atrocities they committed and dancing with the ones that took too long to kill.

Then I met Haydn, a human priest who decided she’d try to mind control and drown me. I’m forgiving for a good arrow in the back, or dagger to the throat — but drowning? That’s just not cool.

I decided to bring out my modest weapon and join my fellow Synergy members to rid Booty Bay of Alliance once and for all.

They put up a good fight. In the end, I was probably the least effective of the team, mostly just trying to have fun. I caused a few Alliance to repent, tossed out a few heals, a lot of cleansing, and a few bonks to the head of some Alliance.

In the end, Synergy claimed Booty Bay as its own. The Alliance flightmaster was slaughtered multiple times, as was every Alliance player that wanted to see the fireworks in Booty Bay.

Long live Synergy!