The leveling experience.

Adam does not seem to be fond of quests in Vash'jir. He makes some valid points, but I have to say, most of the things he finds wrong, I actually find right. I guess we can't agree on everything, right? 

The main reason I play World of Warcraft is because I love every bit of lore Blizzard has created, be it Warcraft, Diablo or Starcraft lore. However, while I do enjoy the lore behind most of the quests, I haven't found the gameplay required to complete it very engaging up until now. I enjoy mmo's because of the social aspect and the fact that other players are interacting with the same world I am in their own way, and I can actually witness that. When it comes to gameplay, however, I prefer the way most single player games handle it - story driven and "on-the-rails". While not perfectly, I feel that the new way quests are designed does this quite well. There are flaws, some of which Adam mentioned, and some of which I too agree with, but for the most part, I find it more engaging than it previously was. Those quests he mentioned where you basically do nothing, I see as cut scenes, which I love to watch in single player games.

Now, I haven't played through Vash'jir completely yet, but I have seen this in other zones, including some of the revamped vanilla zones and I think that it's an improvement. Not all the time, not everywhere, but for the most part, definitely.

TL;DR: I like the new leveling. It feels more engaging and story driven and I don't think it will get as dull as it used to when I go through it on my twentieth alt. 

Skipped One!

Sorry... no excuse really, it just happened.

Yesterday, I did a big move. I decided to stop going for performance so hard and dropped Enchanting on Larthas in favor of getting back Mining. My mage will have Tailoring/Enchanting anyway, so I thought I should just make things easier on my main. Handling Blacksmithing only won't be as inventory intensive and will make other parts of the game simpler.

This is why I've spent some time yesterday and today leveling my Mining again. I won't be selling the ore, because I intend to make my Worgen an Engineer anyway. The leveling goes much faster now, luckily. Flying in the old world really helps, and there is no need to track Thorium so much, since you can just leave for Hellfire once you hit 275. I got it up to 350 and tomorrow I will be getting it to 400 in Northrend. Once I hit that, I can go to Hyjal and start Mining Obsidium to level Blacksmithing to.

Other than that and a couple of heroics, I really didn't do much. I had very little to do anything else. Also, nothing dropped in heroics yet.

The roll continues!

Four out of four, people, four.. OK, I'll stop, it's getting annoying.

Today, Larthas got to 85. I did some archeology first, same as yesterday, and then went back to Uldum to finish the rest of the quests. I have one left until I get an achievement and that one is reserved for the instance, unless it wont count, in which case I missed a quest somewhere again.

While clearing Uldum, I also did a dungeon or two, and then went to Twilight Highlands. I did a few introduction quests and then found a group for the new arena chain there. Mid way through that, I got the last bit of experience needed for level 85. I finished the rest of the quests, got a nice weapon for it and went to discover the entrance to Grim Batol on the way back to Stormwind.

I then did a round through the new zones and bought some new equipment from the quartermasters. I also bought two pieces from the justice points vendor which got my average item level high enough to queue for a heroic. I got Vortex Pinnacle and it really wasn't to hard to complete, once we started using proper crowd control.

That was it for today. Tomorrow, I will spec properly, try to do a few more heroics and maybe level my professions a bit. The marathon to 85 is officially over.

I'm on a roll

Wow, I'm three for three right now! Let's see how long this will last...

Anyways, today, I finished around 70-80 quests in Uldum. Man, do they milk the Indiana Jones thing there. Also, the cat people are cool. Before I went there, though, I did some digging with archeology and also managed to stumble into a quest that turned into a daily at the Gurubashi arena. If you are going to Uldum, thats an easy 80-90k experience the first time you go there, and around 45k each day after that. Seriously, you complete the quest in under 20 seconds so it would be stupid not to do it.

I also did a few dungeons, including some new ones I found, and got some pretty cool loot. When I realized I'm already half way to 85, which takes a total of 9 million experience, by the way, I decided it was time to give it a rest and go back to Stormwind. I took the Hero's Call introduction line for Twilight Highlands while there, and then did some quests with Anduin, uncovering a Twilight conspiracy involving the mayor of Stormwind.

Tomorrow, I intend to go back to Uldum to complete the remaining quests and, with the help of some dungeons, get to 85. If that won't be enough, there's always a whole other zone to complete.

Also, I sold some bags with Sahtral. The netherweaves aren't as popular as I expected, but the frostweaves do sell well. Hopefully, the price of netherweaves will rise once people stop leveling their mains and create worgen. If not, I can still sell them at a profit, just not as big as I expected.

That's right!

Two posts in two days people! I'm on a roll!

What happened? Cataclysm got released is what happened!

I managed to log in at 0:01 and went to Hyjal immediately. It took me a bit under two hours to get my first level. The quests there were great, the lore was great, and I loved it how some of the quests actually prepare newbie players for raids. Anyways, at two in the morning, I decided to go to bed and woke up at eight in the morning the same day.

I had breakfast, and went right back to the game. I cleared the rest of the Hyjal quests and this got me to a bit over 82. Before I went back to Stormwind, I tried out archeology a bit in Winterspring. Then my brother in law came online, so we went to Blackrock to discover our first dungeon entrance. We queued for it and I went to Deepholme, while he went to Hyjal. The flight through the rift in the Maelstrom was epic!

About 20 minutes of quests later, we got the queue and entered Blackrock Caverns. The dungeon was not very hard, but we did wipe a few times due to not being aware of the tactics. Eventually, we completed it and I got a few upgrades through drops and quest rewards. I continued to do quests in Deepholme and soon discovered Stonecore as well. I queued for this one alone, since my brother in law was still in Hyjal. This one felt a bit harder, but nothing we couldn't handle. I completed a total of 113/125 quests in Deepholme before I couldn't find any more. I guess I either missed a few of them somewhere, or the daily quests count for the first time I do them.

I again returned to Stormwind and decided that was enough leveling for the day. I did some digging around the world, went to Uldum to do the intro and find the dungeons there, and then also went to Vashj'ir to find the entrance to the Throne of the Tides and also do the intro. Tomorrow, I will be doing some dungeons and questing in Uldum.

I'm loving every minute of the expansion. Everything is brand new again and the quests are fun and nicely streamlined. WoW is pure fun for me again!

A long time ago...

 ...I actually wrote on this blog! Well, I think it's time to do so again. Over the last few weeks, I had exams again, and my computer was busted again, so I barely even touched the game. The worst part of it is, the computer broke just when the Cataclysm patch was released so I didn't get to experience any of the changes from the start.

Well, exams are over, the computer is now working, so I've been very busy.

I continued to clear my inventory and sell everything that will become useless tomorrow. This means I left the eternals and common gems I had, as I expect those to be in demand once all those new Worgen start to go to Northrend and level their professions. I also left some enchanting materials, but not much, since I used up most of them. My scrolls sold for the most part, but I still have a bunch left over so I hope I will somehow manage to sell those later, at least at a discount for a partial return of my investments.

Lashtar is doing well with inscription, but I didn't stock up on inks because of my computer, so I'm just selling the stuff I already made. Still, he started at around 1000 and is now at close to 7000. With a single 5 minutes-a-day time investment, I think this is pretty damn good. With all of this, I am right now sitting on about 220 000 gold total, so I think Cataclysm won't be a financial issue.

I also cleared Larthas' inventory and bought him some flasks and potions of water walking. I was also going to buy some swiftness potions, but there aren't any on the auction house. With that and the vendor mount he owns, leveling will be a painless process. I did nearly the same things with my other characters but I still have to research what a good leveling spec would be for each of them.

I also leveled my mage to 65. He can now make frostweave and netherweave bags and he already made a whole bunch of them hoping the price would increase tomorrow and over the next few weeks. He should make a nice profit on those. I really loved leveling in the old world with him. The whole 1-60 content redesign is awesome and it plays great. Leveling is truly fun again.

Most importantly, I decided to leave my guild. After all the breaks I had because of hardware and other issues, I just didn't feel like I belong there anymore. Also, I don't think I will be able to raid as much as I used to, so that's another reason I felt it was time to leave. Since I have so many alts, server transfers are out of the question, so I made my new home in Nerf Me, a much larger guild which, while they do raid, also makes room for social players which is what I will probably be for the next few months. I might do a raid every now and then if there's room and I have the time, but mostly, I will be taking it easy and enjoying the game at a slower, less time intensive pace.

Anyways, over the next few days, I will be leveling and finally experiencing some truly new content, so I'm not really sure how much I will be able to write, but I promise to at least try and give you a short update.

Is there an achievement?

I'm not allowed to post at the inn, so I'm going to express my opinion here. It seems Larissa is annoyed with a person asking "is there an achievement" regarding the new phase of the invasion. She seems to think that it's wrong to think that way and to ask questions like that. Like the game should be played "purely for the fun of it".

Well, It is my opinion that she is one hundred percent, completely, absolutely wrong. I also think that she is extremely narrow-minded in stating this. Now, if the person who asked the above question also thinks that the event is stupid because there is no achievement (other than the minor feat of strength), then that person is wrong and narrow-minded to.

There is no right or wrong way to play an MMO or any game for that matter. The game is supposed to be fun, true. The thing some people seem to be consistently missing is that everyone has their on definition of fun and, as long as that definition doesn't involve directly destroying some other person's fun in a multiplayer game, then this is completely fine. You get it, guys? YOU like the "social experience" of defending Stormwind form an elemental invasion. True, I like it to, for the first few times, but I also like getting achievements, raiding properly every now and then, doing some PVP. I sure as hell don't tell myself that your opinion is the norm or the only right one. There are people in this game who only PVP. There are also people who like top level raiding, math and spending hundreds and thousands of gold to get 10 more dps. All of them have as much fun as you do, and to think that your fun is somehow "better" than theirs is just idiotic and ignorant.

So yeah, If all that person cares is the achievements and that's fun for him, then that's great. If that same person starts thinking that achievements are the only good way to have fun in this game and thinks people who prefer the social aspect or PVP or raiding are wrong, then he/she is just as ignorant as those that claim the same for any of those aspects.

Today, I played WoW

Quite a bit, actually! Now let's see, what did I do?

First I killed some horde noobs in Darnassus with a guildie.Four or five of them tried to kill Tyrande, but we stopped that, single handedly. This also got me to 27/50 on City Defender.

Then I decided it was time to start clearing my inventory. Having only one banker guild with only three tabs, I can't really stockpile that much for cataclysm, so I decided to get rid of inventory that probably wont be selling. This includes current enchants, epic and meta gems, stuff like that. It also means I completely removed my thresholds on those items. I'm still making a profit on most of them, even without the threshold, but the priority is to get rid of them. I am currently siting at about 200 000 gold and I expect at the very least a couple of thousands more after the clearance sale.

I also started seriously making money on inscription. I got a bunch of inks and made one of each glyph I know how to make. They sell at insane profits on my realm so I expect it to be the major money maker during the next week or two.

I also tried making some money with leatherworking and it is working, but the potential here is much smaller. Still, these are things that move fast, so I will be using it for a while.

I also leveled my mage to 45. Nothing major there, but I did it.

The big thing, however, is the fact that the next phase of the elemental invasion started. Portals are appearing throughout Stormwind and Ironforge with elementals pouring in on all sides. Once cleared, you are able to bring the fight to them and fight four major elemental bosses throughout Azeroth, with some of the more renowned people at your side, like Magni Bronzebeard. I missed the invasions for now, but I did fight the fire boss in Blackrock. The next invasion should be in less than an hour, so I will be ready.

There, finally a post with some content, hope you guys enjoyed it.

Been a while...

I have been neglecting this blog for a bit, mostly because I didn't have much to write about. Even today, all I can give is a short update.

I have slowly been going back to the AH business, but it doesn't feel as fun anymore. I might put this part of my gameplay on hold until cataclysm gets out.

In other news, I managed to get exalted with the Zandalar Tribe today with Larthas, so I won't be losing anything in that aspect once they remove it in the next major patch. There are also some great news. The Insane title will still be obtainable come Cataclysm, even a bit easier than before. All they did was to remove one reputation faction from the requirements.

Also, Sahtral is now 42 and I might even push him to 50 to start preparing for the huge demand for Netherweave bags when Cataclysm gets out. The problem is, exams are coming up in a week and they will last until December 3rd so I'm not sure if I have the time to do it. I have to say, I'm loving the Arcane tree in dungeons. All of my spells are instant cast and I rarely, if ever, run out of mana, thanks to Evocation. The class is now truly fun to play.

Anyways, that's about it. I didn't do much else, and I probably won't do much else due to real life obligations.

Bejeweled!

So, apparently, Bejeweled 3 is coming out on the same day as Cataclysm - December 7th. This might be a serious problem for Blizzard and could cause them to lose allot of subscribers. What do you think? Will you be buying Cataclysm, Bejeweled or both?

I, for one, am undecided as of yet. We shall see!

Also, my computer is back again and it seems to be working for now. I haven't played much, but I did spend allot of time configuring my new interface, TukUI on all of my characters as well as trying to recapture the auction house, which really went under while I was gone.

Also, Sahtral should be around 37 now, if I'm not mistaken...

One other thing. In case you didn't realize, that up there was sarcasm...

I got hacked!

Yep, I did. And I really mean hacked. No social engineering involved, or anything of the sort. I did not fall for a scam, I did not buy gold, nothing like it.

What happened is, my main e-mail account was compromised, probably because there was a keylogger on one of the college computers I used it on. From my main e-mail account, the hacker got access to some of my WoW account data and he managed to reset the password. From there on, he attached an authenticator and blocked me from accessing my account.

I went through the recovery process and everything should be restored by the time I get my computer back on Tuesday or Wednesday. Whoever he was, I think he loved my more than one hundred thousand gold pieces that I had on all of my characters combined.

Did I learn anything? Not really, since it was due to lack of security in my college. I can't avoid opening my e-mail there, so all I can do is to change my passwords at home, after each occasion of accessing my accounts in college. I should also probably delete my old e-mails more often, as my WoW account data was in on old e-mail on my main e-mail account.

Will I be buying an authenticator? No, definitely not. It's not that I think it's a waste, it's just that I hate having an additional gadget on my desk. If I get a decent mobile phone, I will get the mobile app at one point, but my current phone is not supported so that will have to wait.

I think that two years of gameplay with no issues is a good track record, so I'm not worried really. Even less so, since my new WoW e-mail is now completely isolated from all my other accounts.

Hardware issues are back...

In case you didn't follow me for the last few months, my laptop malfunctioned. It happened slowly but, over time, I couldn't do anything on it because it would go out as soon as I put even the slightest stress on it. Last week, I finally ordered a new computer and got it last Friday. Sadly, the GPU was busted and I finally got it replaced on Monday. The computer worked perfectly until last night, when something else malfunctioned and it wouldn't boot. Today, I left it at the shop so they can find the problem and fix it properly.

Sadly, since it's the holidays, I won't be getting it back until Tuesday or even Wednesday so I won't be playing WoW again. This really sucks, but there's nothing I can do about it except be patient. Hopefully, once I get it back next week, all these problems will go away at least for a while. For now, I will follow the blogosphere, try to post a tip every now and then and possibly write a quick rogue guide since that is the last alt I have at 80.

It's good to be back!

The computer is finally working so, at long last, I played the game again today. Mind you, I have a headache, so I haven't played nearly as much as I would like to. I managed to spec Larthas and have been practicing my new priority system. I have also done the Hallow's End daily and spent some time rebuilding my settings with the new Zero Auctions addon. It work's pretty much the same as always, except you have to confirm every auction now.

Other than that, I didn't play much. I will probably try and spec some of my other characters tonight and spend more time at it tomorrow if the headache is gone.

On a related note, glyphs seem to selling like crazy still, so I should probably try to get in on that.

Hardware sucks...

My hardware troubles still persist so I won't be playing anything any time soon, sadly.

I've been hearing about various bugs introduced in patch 4.0.1 from my brother in law. It seems his game completely freezes sometimes when he enters a random dungeon, and, apparently, others have this issue also. All he can do at that point is to physically turn of and restart his computer. Anyone else having any weird issues? Any fixes for those? I would hate to finally be able to play the game and then be blocked by a nasty bug.

Busy, busy!

Sorry for not posting, guys, but I've been busy for the past few days trying to get my new computer into a usable condition. I got it yesterday morning and get this, it's broken. I guess it's a factory defect, so there wasn't much I could do. I took it back to the store (drove all the way to Zagreb), where they plugged it in and it was suddenly working. When I got it back home, it worked for an hour, but then the troubles began again. I will probably have to get the GPU replaced, but at this point, it could be anything so I might even have to leave it at the shop. The good news is, I have the warranty so it's all free. The bad news is, I still have to pay for travel expenses so right now I'm regretting not buying it somewhere closer for a bit more money.

As for WoW, here's something. It seems I have mislead you and the cooldown on epic gem transmutes was not removed. Sorry for spreading missinformation.

Patch 4.0.1 Shaman Healing

Well, my fourth alt was a shaman and, while I did level as elemental, I also made him a healer and used a healing spec through the dungeons. As usual, this is all purely theoretical, so don't crucify me if I'm wrong, just let me know and I'll try and fix it.

Talents

Talents are... let's just say a bit weird. I'm really not sure what you should do with some of them so allot of this is probably personal preference. I guess 31/2/3 is what I would go with right now, but only it's hard to tell what will soon be preferable. Depending on your mana and output, you might instead put 3 points in Improved Shields and two points in Acuity. If you really lack mana, you could even remove Acuity completely and take Telluric Currents instead. It really is completely dependent on your gear and preferences. Also, the one point in Cleanse Spirit could be put somewhere else, but I figured, if I need to cleanse him, he is probably taking damage. Basically, give it some thought and redistribute as you feel is needed.

Glyphs

This is a bit easier to chose, but there's still some options left. For prime Glyphs, you should probably go with Earth and Water Shield. As for the third one, both Earthliving Weapon and Riptide are viable, but Earthliving Weapon more so. You could also go for Shocking if you feel that using Shocks is taking to much of your healing time.

Major glyphs are pretty straightforward. Take Chain Heal, Healing Wave and Healing Stream Totem.  It will give you some flexibility and improve your performance.

For minor glyphs, this is really completely your choice, but I will probably take Astral Recall, Renewed Life and Water Breathing, simply for the convenience.

Gear, Reforging, Gemming, Enchanting

First of all, you will be using mail now. Sorry to say, but if you had cloth and leather pieces, you will need to find some replacements as the 5% bonus is good. 

Other than that, the gemming will remain the same except SP is replaced with Intellect. You will probably be using the Frost relic from now on, as relics don't give you special procs anymore and are simple gear items instead. 

You will probably be able to keep your old enchants without much issues, but you could get Brilliant Spellthread, Arcanum of Blissful Mending and Greater Inscription of the Crag now.

As for reforging, there are no caps to reach, but do try and track your haste levels to see when you can reach certain thresholds and reforge accordingly. 

Combat

OK, we are out of DPS and Tanking waters so I rally can't help to much here. There is no "rotation" or priority system to follow. Heal as needed and pick the right heals for the right situation. Don't waste mana and be smart. All that I can say based on the news is that you will be shocking allot and maybe electrocuting if you picked the talent. 

Conclusion

Well, I believe this would be it for my shaman guide. As I said, healing requires me to test things out, so I really can't decide on allot of things based just on numbers. You will have to change the way how you heal, that's for sure, and in this case, the best tip I can give is to practice. 

Patch 4.0.1 Death Knight Tanking

My DK was the third alt that I got to 80 and she was going to be my exclusive banker, thus the girl name that doesn't follow the rules of my other alts. I wanted to have her as a tank so I can do dailies and the weekly raid fast without wasting to much time on queues and trying to find a group. Before this patch, she was a frost tank and it went well for heroics and weekly raids. Thing have changed!

Now, keep in mind, this is all theoretical, as I am unable to play. This is what I would do in theory, but I have no idea how it would work in practice. Once I fix my hardware issues and start to play again, I will update all of my guides and try to make them as short and as simple to follow as possible. I'm not trying to do statistics here, I just want to make quick and easy "cheat sheets" so people can look up information in a hurry. If you want in-depth stuff, go to ElitistJerks or something.

Talents

First of all, Blood is the tank tree now. No Frost, no Unholy, just Blood. Period. I find this a welcome change as it will ease balancing and make it easier to understand for newbies. As for those who complain that the class isn't unique any more, go cry in a corner somewhere.

There are several ways  I could go with the spec here, but I think this version of 31/0/0 would be the core. As for the rest of the talents, we have a few choices. Keep in mind, Scarlet Fever and Abomination's Might are pretty much interchangeable, based on raid composition. If both is covered, you could take Blood-Caked Blade for threat or Hand of Doom for some utility.

As for the remaining 5 points, you could go allot of ways. There's 3 potential points in Epidemic, so you can keep your diseases up easier. Then you can add some to Unholy Command, but both of these are probably better choices in dungeons than in raids. You could also take both Scarlet Fever and Abomination's might to cover more areas in your raid/group, or put some points in Blood-Caked Blade to increase your single target threat.

 
Glyphs

For prime glyphs, good choices are Heart Strike and Rune Strike for more damage and threat, and Death and Decay for more AoE threat. There is also the option of Death Strike if you prefer to focus on single target.

For major glyphs, we have a few more choices. You could take Dancing Rune Weapon for more threat on cooldown, Vampiric Blood and Rune Tap for healing, Bone Shield so you can react faster and Blood Boil, Pestilence and Death Grip for more range, and better AoE. Anti-Magic Shell can also be situationally a good choice, as well as Strangulate.

As for minor glyphs, just pick what you like and what you feel like it might be useful. None of them affect your performance that much, but they actually seem fun.

Just remember, you learn glyphs now and always have them, so remember to switch when needed (those dusts aren't that expensive).

Stats and Reforging

Basically, if you have to much hit or expertise, reforge to other stats, based on what you need. You can't reforge to stamina so there really isn't a perfect answer for this. Still, Mastery probably is the better choice to reforge to. Once you get Expertise and Hit to cap values, you should probably reforge the excess to Mastery. You don't really need to be hit capped to tank, but you might as well if you got the gear. Extra threat is always welcome and gives you the chance to worry about other things.

Gemming

In ICC, it's still Stamina all the way, nothing has changed there. If the socket bonus is 12 stamina or more, then take it, otherwise, don't bother. Use expertise, hit, dodge and parry in combination with stamina to get the bonus (green and purple). 

Threat

This really isn't as simple to explain as DPS priority/rotations, but let's try. Basically the best way to spend runic power is with Rune Strike. It causes the most amount of threat per point spent, by far. For AoE, Death and Decay is your friend, but keep in mind it will be up 50% of the time at best. If you took Crimson Scourge, Blood Boil will be a good addition here. Overall, Heart Strike will be the best choice, but you should really switch it up based on the situation.

Put diseases early and don't let them drop. Don't worry about clipping them, we aren't warlocks. If you have Scarlet Fever and Crimson Scourge, the best way to refresh diseases will always be Pestilence.

Survival

This one seems complicated, but the basic premise is simple. Use cooldowns as required. You have a wide array of choices and so pick the ones that are best for the situation. Also use your Rune Taps when needed. It's better to reduce your threat/damage output for a while than to die, the same goes for Death Strike. Summoning the Army of the Dead actually also grants you damage resistance while channeling, so keep that in mind for emergency situations. 

Most importantly, KEEP BONE SHIELD UP! 

Combat

So let's put all of this to practice. This is how you should start combat:

• Apply diseases. Outbreak can be a quick and easy opener and it will leave your runes untouched, so you can then start with the hard hitters right away.
• If you are the one with Scarlet Fever, use Blood Boil early and keep the debuff active.
• If there's no emergency, just use Heart Strike. If there's more than 4-5 targets, use Blood Boil instead.
• If you think it's getting tough, use Death Strike
• If there's more multiple targets, Death and Decay. 

Conclusion

Well, that's about it, I hope it helps. Just remember that I had no way to test this. If you have something to add or you feel like something is wrong, let me know and I will correct it. You probably won't be getting a DPS guide for Death Knights for me, since, other then leveling, I have no experience with it.

Affliction Warlocks in 4.0.1

Since the warlock was my first alt, I thought I should also write a quick guide about affliction, the spec my warlock uses. Some of these things can be applied to the other two specs, but not all of them.

Talents
31/0/5 is what I will be using before Cataclysm. Again, talents are easy to pick now and most of the optional stuff really is optional. Both the Drain Life and Shadow bolt approach are viable now, but Shadow Bolt really is more effective so if you wish to maximize your output, you should go in that direction.

Glyphs
Nothing to think about here, use Haunt, Lash of Pain and Bane of Agony as prime glyphs, Life Tap, Soul Swap and Shadow Bolt as major glyphs. Take whatever you like as minor glyphs. Obvious from the choice of glyphs, the Succubus will be our pet of choice now. If you decide to use Drain Life instead of Shadow Bolt or if you have more than 1400 haste, the Life Tap glyph is not needed. 

Gemming
The Chaotic Skyflare Diamond will be your meta of choice. As for others, try not to break socket colors and use a Veiled Dreadstone in blue sockets. Once you reach the hit cap, switch to pure +20 Intellect, as no socket bonus is worth 10 Intellect. As for yellow slots, use a Smooth or a Quick King's Amber if the bonus is more than 3 Spell Power, otherwise, just go for pure Intellect. 

Spell Priority

• Corruption
• Haunt
• Unstable Affliction
• Bane of Agony
• Drain Soul (If target is at less than 20% health) 
• Shadow Bolt or Drain Life 

Stat Priority

• Shadow Bolt: Hit (17%) > Intellect > Haste > Spellpower > Mastery > Critical Rating
• Drain Life: Hit (17%) > Intellect > Mastery > Haste > Spellpower > Critical Rating

Reforging
Reforge critical rating to hit and mastery as much as possible. Also remember that you will need 2 blue gems for your meta requirement, so you should make those +hit gems. Basically, fill your blue sockets with +hit/+int, then reforge your +crit to +hit until you reach the cap, then reforge crit to haste and if you can't reforge to haste, reforge to mastery.

Additional Tips

• Unlike all your other dots, do not refresh your Bane of Agony while it's still on your target, because the damage it does ramps up nearing the end of it. Wait for it to run out and then recast it, or you will miss on some heavier ticks. 
• Feel free to use Shadowflame if the situation allows it, as it's damage has been ramped up. 
• Doomguard and Infernal have now become guardians and you can use them, on cooldown, beside your pet. Just consider them as damage cooldowns. The first one is for single target, while the second one is for AoE. Their strength is based on your stats at the moment of summoning, so try to chain up some trinkets or something before summoning them. Also, they will attack targets with the bane spell, so make sure you cast one before using them.
• Enchanting pretty much remained the same, as far as I can see so there are no new enchants to consider

Disclaimer
All of this is purely theoretical. I cannot play the game at the moment, due to hardware issues so I'm just following logic, based on the info I have outside the game. If you feel I am mistaken about something, please let me know and I will check and correct it if needed.
 

Retribution Paladins in 4.0.1 and Cataclysm

 Our class has changed allot in this patch. The mechanics are pretty much flipped upside down and we are more like rogues than our old selves. Allot of people have questions, so I will try to answer some of them.

Talents
I will probably be going with 3/2/31 for now while planning to put points into Arbiter of the Light and Blazing Light on 85 leaving me at 7/2/31. This leaves one point in the end, so you can pick it for yourself. I plan to put it in Rebuke to increase my utility. An extra interrupt is never a bad thing. Some of these talents are optional, but you should be able to figure that one out for yourself. Talents really are a no-brainer with Retribution. 

Gemming

It looks like we will be gemming pure strength only now and in Cataclysm. This hasn't changed but it does look like there might be something in gemming strength/crit or even strength/haste in some situations. For the absolute optimal gemming, we will have to wait for some theorycrafting.

As for the meta gem, the Chaotic Skyflare Diamond will probably be the way to go now.   

Enchanting

Everything should stay to same here, except for the cloak. Our new cloak enchant at 80 will probably be the Greater Speed one.

Gear

2 T9 and 2T10 is still the way to go before you can get 4 T10. It gives a flat 10% increase to all our damage sources. Also, with agility not being our thing anymore, we should all be switching to the strength version of our Ashen Verdict ring. The same goes for all other agility gear. Also, WEAR ALL PLATE! The 5% strength bonus is big.

Reforging

First of all, reforge to get to 8% hit cap. After that, cap the expertise (26). Once you get those two down, reforge to haste until you reach that cap. After that, crit is priority. Now, for the haste cap, it's not as easy to calculate so check out Elitist Jerks and RetributionPaladins to figure it out. Basically, you want Crusader Strike to drop to 3 seconds so you can do CS > Filler > CS without losing anything. In ideal cases, that would require 1015 haste, but since we have latency to worry about, the number fdrops to about 750haste at 100ms or 510 haste at 200ms of latency. All of this will change with the new spell usage background mechanic Blizzard will be implementing, so I'm not sure how those values will work out.

Fights

You use the Seal of Truth on bosses and Seal of Righteousness on trash and AoE packs. As for blessings, it's Might unless the group is caster heavy, in which case you use Kings. If you need to close in on an enemy, use Judgement now unless you have Art of War stacks, in which case you use Exorcism. Also, paladins have utility, a good paladin will make use of that, so use Word of Glory when you see someone needing it. Any good DPS should have raid frames in a visible place just like a healer. A Flash of Light every now and then isn't that bad either so if it's needed, use it. Keeping another person alive at the expense of some of your DPS is always worth it.

Now, we don't have FCFS anymore so our "rotation" now is CS > filler > CS until we hit three Holy Power and then a finishing move is used. The choice of the finisher depends on the situation. If we are fighting less than 3 enemies, use Templar's Verdict. For more than three, Divine Storm should be your choice. If someone needs emergency healing, use Word of Glory. Once we start leveling to 85, we will also have Inquisition, but no need to worry about that for now. As for the fillers, they actually are FCFS so the priority would be Judgement > Exorcism (with Art of War) > Hammer of Wrath > Holy Wrath > Consecration, if I'm not mistaken. Just keep in mind, once you get enough haste, you will only be using one filler in between Crusader Strikes so just use the one that does the highest damage. Also, you won't be using Consecration that much, so don't worry about it.

Other than that, we have a new cooldown and our old one has changed a bit. Avenging Wrath is now usable at any time and it lets you use Hammer of Wrath regardless of enemy health. The new one is Zealotry which boosts your Holy Power production for 20 seconds. Use them when you think it's smart and, but be sure to use them as many times in a battle as possible.

Conclusion

Well, that's about it. If I missed anything, let me know. Retribution has been a little low on DPS on day one of the patch, but some quick hotfixes changed that, so you should be fine in toping the charts now. Enjoy!  

How are things?

So, the new patch is out and the auction house rush is probably subsiding on most realms.

Since I couldn't make use if it myself, I'm wondering how things went for the rest of you. All around the blogosphere, people are reporting huge profits from glyphs and slightly less huge profits from gems and other items. Well, how did things go for you? Did you make or lose money? Did you learn anything?

Other stuff happened two. Some of the classes have completely different play styles now. Some have been boosted, while others nerfed in damage. Of course, Blizzard will fix these things soon, but the question remains. How did it go for you and your class?

Throw me a bone here guys! I can't play myself, so I would at least like to hear how others are playing. :D

Also, what are your plans for the next month and a half? The events will probably be starting soon, but my guess is, they wont push them together it Hollow's End.