Frost Emblems and Ret Pallies

I am deciding what to do with my Frost Emblems in the future, and thought I should go ahead and just post my thought processes here so that they might possibly be of use to someone else.

Tier 10
These are definitely good buys for those emblems, and this is where all of mine have gone so far. I'm up to 3 pieces of Tier 10 now (though I can only really use 2 at a time), and my plan is to try to get the legs out of VoA for the 4 piece and save myself all those emblems.

Cloaks
Both the Emblem cloaks are quite nice, Scarlet Onslaught seems to be slightly better if you are expertise capped but Ocean Serpent is definitely a solid choice, and is a little more future-proof as well. I have the cloak from Gunship 25, so this one isn't really on my personal radar at all.

Chest/Gloves
These are pretty decent pieces, but since both are in Tier slots, I am not likely to be taking advantage of them anytime soon. Right now I am using 2 T9 and 2 T10 plus the crafted 245 chest, and there is no way I am paying 95 emblems to get 30 more strength and some extra ArPen. Gloves I am using for a Tier slot, and hopefully I will have the gloves from Festergut 25 for when I am ready to put Tier in the chest. Either way, these pieces are low priority.

Belt
The belt is quite nice if you need the hit, but I personally have way more than I want anyway, and the waist slot is one place I was hoping to be able to get rid of some. One of the bosses in Plagueworks drops a belt (Edit: which has hit and ends up being a sidegrade anyway), and Valithria 25 has the BiS, so with some luck I'll have the opportunity to get one of those pretty soon. Again, low priority.

Trinket
The Herkuml War Token isn't all that great of a trinket, and I am not really interested. On paper it actually ranks up there quite highly, despite the fact that the static bonus is haste. I used Fury of the Five Flights back in the day (and still do for some things, sadly) though, and I can tell you without hesitation that I hate the stacking AP mechanic. It's annoying to get to full stacks and in some fights you will lose the stack and have to start over again through no fault of your own. It hurts, because I could really, really use a trinket upgrade, but I don't think this is the way to go.

Libram
In a continuing theme, this is a nice upgrade, but way too minor to justify the expenditure of Emblems. For SoV, which is what you'll be using for most boss fights, its only a gain of 20 strength, one epic gem. For fights where you are using another seal, the benefit is quite a bit larger, but the stack is fairly slow building up (takes something like 45 seconds to pass Valiance when you are using SoV) and its just not a big enough gain to justify the cost.

That leaves us with...
Primordial Saronite
This seems to be just about the only thing that is left to buy with Frost Emblems. The attractiveness of this is highly dependent on a factor that is not really within my control, however. I am not particularly interested in either the crafted boots or legs (using legs as a tier slot, already have the 251 boots and would prefer the boots from Lady D 25 to the crafted) so the only thing I want Primordial Saronite for is Shadow's Edge. My guild still hasn't killed Rotface or Festergut, so we haven't actually decided who is getting the official support of the guild in obtaining the legendary. Since we are new, we don't have much of a history to draw on, so I don't envy the officers who have to make the choice. So far, however, only two people have put their names under consideration (including me). So...I don't really have anything to say, I guess, since I have no idea how this will go. If they pick me then I get some assistance in acquiring the Primordial Saronites, and that's where all my Emblems will start to go all of a sudden. If not, then who knows what'll happen. Maybe I can even scrounge up the 25 Saronite on my own and the guild can have 2 legendaries :)

So to summarize the gear available from the Frost Emblem vendors, Tier is awesome and everything else is a bit "meh." Obviously everything depends to some extent on your own personal gear, but as far as I can tell, none of the Emblem non-Tier pieces are going to be on a Best-in-Slot gear list. If you happen to be rocking a 200 belt and need some hit though, the Malevolent Girdle is right up your alley. As always with gear choices, you have to exercise those spreadsheet muscles and figure out what will work for you.

My UI

This will be about my UI, and why I like it. These are links, because images inserted in here get cropped instead of shrunk and look stupid. Also, I play on a roughly 15" screen, so it's probably smaller than many people's, which means I don't have quite as much room as I would like to play around in. These screenshots are also shrunk down a bit, but you can get the idea. Lastly, I left myself as focus in all of these, which is why my name is in the bar below the player frame.

In Dal, with a target
Showing raid frames in config mode (they look better in a real raid)
In combat against a target dummy

Here is a list of mods I use, with a focus on those visible in the screenshots, and a brief explanation for the more obscure ones:
Pitbull unit frames and raid frames (I use Vuhdo to heal)
Bartender4 (with ButtonFacade for button skins, Elegance Dark in this case)
Chatter
DeadlyBossMods
Fontain - allows you to change basically every font in the game - I use Accidental Presidency for almost everything
MikScrollingBattleText
OmniCC - adds text to show the cooldowns on items/abilities. Very helpful.
PallyPower - really handy buffing tool
Power Auras Classic - The SoC icon to my toon's right as well as the two yellow icon's to my toon's left are from this. Allows you to show images based on basically any conditions you want. Very customizable, I stick with pretty basic stuff.
Quartz
Retribution FCFS Helper (clcret) - Awesome addon that shows you what ability to use next based on the priority list you set up. Also can watch ICDs for you and other things. Very cool.
SatrinaBuffFrame - I have 2 special frames for this, in addition to the normal buff/debuff. One is my debuffs, above my player frame (easier to see) and the other is my target's buffs, above their frame (more customizable position than the auras in Pitbull)
SexyMap
Skada - Damage and threat meter. Shows damage out of combat, threat in combat.
TidyPlates (using Cleanplates theme) - Really nice little nameplates, apparently much more lightweight than Aloft.
Time to Die - A simple addon that simply puts a little text box approximating how long your target will take to die based on some algorithm. Not incredibly accurate, but good for getting a general idea.
Tipsy - Lets you move the tooltip location. Not any of that fancy DogTag stuff.
Viewporter - That black bar at the bottom. This causes WoW to render the screen as if that black part wasn't there. In essence, gives a place to put addons where they can't block anything and gives you a wider view.

Okay, so now to talk briefly about my setup. First off, I like symmetry. My player/focus/focus' target frames are set up to mirror my target/target's target/target's target's target frames exactly. They are all close to my toon, but provide space to see fire. The auras from Power Auras are even closer, but they aren't solid, so they don't block much. The clcret frame in between player and target lets me keep an eye on what button to mash without moving my eyes too much (I also have a back-up bar with all six of my main abilities for certain situations, like Maly discs). My bars are set up in a way that is nice looking to me and provides separation between sections. Skada appears next to the map, but it doesn't show when I am solo. My chat windows are separated, the left one is things I pay more attention to, the right one is things like General and Trade. DBM bars appear in the top left corner, and move to the middle, above my toon, when they are close to expiring. Pallypower is up in the top right corner.

Basically, I think that this setup provides good visibility of the area around my character while still giving me quick access to unit frames, buff info, etc. I am still not totally sure about the stacked frames, but it's working for now. Oh, and having the player name displayed is pointless (that never changes, after all) but I do it for the symmetry. Sorry.

UI

This might be a little long, but hopefully not too bad. Probably end up with one post about UI principles and categories of mods, and then one post that shows my UI and why I do things the way I do.

In most custom UIs, there is not actually much difference in the information present than with a Blizzard setup. The primary differences lie in where that information is located and how it is presented to the user. The one thing that must be considered in making your own UI is whether or not you can get the information you need quickly when you need it. If you are running high on threat, will one of your mods tell you or can you see this in your peripheral vision? If you need to check your health, can you do that while monitoring your GCD? Can you tell how much longer it will be until your cooldowns are ready again? If not, maybe something needs shifting. Many mods are very customizable, allowing you to do almost whatever you want. There are quite a few types of mods that are included in many custom setups, as well as many more obscure ones.

Pretty Common

Unit Frames - Pitbull, XPerl, ShadowedUF - These are the frames for player health/power, target health/power, etc. Customizable emphasis and positioning in particular are key.
Raid Frames - As above, plus Grid, Vuhdo - Large improvement over Blizzard's standard raid unit displays.
Bar Mod - Bartender, Dominos - Allows you to move, resize, and otherwise distort Blizzard's action bars. Also allows easier assigning of hotkeys in many cases.
Boss Mod - DeadlyBossMods, BigWigs - More or less required for raiding, gives alerts and timers on all kinds of boss abilities.
Chat Mod - Chatter, Prat - Allows the adjustment of various features, generally fairly minor.
Combat Text - MikScrollingBattleText - Allows notification of incoming and outgoing damage and heals, gaining and losing buffs/debuffs, target gaining buffs, etc.
Threat Meter - Omen, Skada - Allows monitoring of threat in a more customizable way than the default.
Damage Meter - Recount, Skada - Allows monitoring of damage done, damage taken, healing done, etc. without reading your entire combat log.
Cast Bar - Quartz - Repositioning, resizing, custom colors, whatever.

Less Common (pretty much arbitrary, sue me)

Death Reports - Acheron, Recount - What happened before someone died.
Font Changing - Fontain - Changing fonts for aesthetic or functional reasons.
Minimap - SexyMap - Different shapes/sizes/looks for the Minimap.
HUD - ArcHUD, MetaHUD - A lot like unit frames, different presentation.
Nameplate Mod - TidyPlates, Aloft - Customization of the nameplates that can be turned on.
Proc Notification - PowerAurasClassic - Not sure how to categorize this, basically lets you show an icon based on any of a large number of criteria.
Buffs - SatrinaBuffFrame, ElkanosBuffBars - Allows presentation of buffs in different location/way.

There are all kinds of other things out there, including many I use that I had no idea how to categorize. Anything I use that is visible in my UI I'll talk about in that post, plus I might make a post on some of the more interesting/customizable addons out there.

Raiding, etc.

First off, I should probably explain something briefly for the person (possibly non-existent) reading this who doesn't know me. I am in a pretty new guild formed by Frostheim (of warcrafthuntersunion.com) and Hrist (the Haterade). Many of the current members are people who are native Icecrowners, in particular people who are part of Frost and Hrist's ten-man team MNK and people from their old guild (significant overlap here). Because it's a new guild advertised on a widely-read intertube site though, there are quite a few server transfers as well (including me). These transfers obviously left behind most of their e-friends/raid teams/whatever. Thus many of us have begun to band together into a second ten-man team, known as TBD (To Be Determined or To Be Disconnected, depending on how things are going).

The main problem that TBD has had so far is the issue of getting a decent raid comp and finding a time that works for people, reliable attendance, etc. This is not at all surprising, to be honest; people planning to join Wyrmfoe checked that the Friday/Saturday raid times worked for them, no one filled out a little form that also asked if they would happen to be available on such-and-such random day for a ten-man team. It seems likely that going forward our strategy will have to consist of picking two days, having at least a couple people capable of raid-leading, and going on those days at the appointed time regardless of anything else. This will likely cause most people to miss at least one day on a semi-regular basis, but it will probably lead to the greatest overall amount of time spent in-instance. (Please note that I have certainly not been immune to the issue of attendance, and am not trying to imply that this is a criticism to be leveled against people. RL > WoW, but for the purposes of the raid team, we need to be able to forge ahead even if 4 people can't make it)

Monday the 15th's TBD raid was really fun though. We almost canceled it simply because quite a few of our regular people were unable to make it (and thoughtfully posted on our forum) but decided to press on. Though we certainly started later than we wanted to, we actually ended up filling the group quite nicely, with a quite decent comp, using only 3 PUGs. Moreover, our PUGed players were very high quality, including a Frost DK who was kicking my ass in DPS. We one-shot our way up to Saurfang, which is where things get interesting since we haven't killed him as a group before. We had a couple wipes which were more about seeing the fight and working out the kinks in our strategy and then we got down to serious business. After the third (?) wipe our PUG DK had to go, but one of our healers from the guild stepped in on her alt DK. Her Chains of Ice combined with a slight adjustment in strategy really cleaned things up, but we were running low on time. What should technically have been our final attempt was a heartbreaker, since our Resto Shammy (Marked) died with the boss at 4%, sadly ending it. We all gathered up again and gave it another shot, got the boss down with only one Mark going out. It helped that it was on me (not only did I have about 8k more buffed health, but I could afford to throw SS and instant FoL on myself pretty often with fairly low DPS loss). As a sidenote, Saurfang was at something like 95% blood power when he died, which meant he looked MASSIVE when Papa Saurfang carried him away.

Anyway, it was an awesome night, and it was really great to see the group carry on in the face of attendance issues. Big thanks go to the healers, the ranged, and the very mature and helpful PUGs. Great night of raiding, and I can't wait for us to get into some of the later stuff. And for Lady D to drop that damn trinket another time or two. As a quick finish, picked up the sword from Marrowgar (which I can't use since it has so much hit) and the Holy legs from him as well. My Holy set is over 30k mana completely unbuffed now, I should probably use it once in a while.

On Gear

Gear is a tricky subject for me sometimes. I don't raid to get gear, I raid because I like the sense of accomplishment that comes with it. It is REALLY fun that first time you kill a boss you have been having trouble with, or knowing that an encounter is confusing and odd and then everyone does their job right and the boss goes down and makes it seem easy. That said, gear is an integral part of raiding. Most of the rewards for raiding are gear, and if my gear lags behind, I can't contribute as much to the progress of my raid. Moreover, I do like gear. It's fun to look at the Armory or WoW Heroes and be reminded of what you have done. I have several pieces of 264 gear and this says that I (with my guild) can kill bosses in ICC 25 (even if only in the Lower Spire so far).

I will freely admit that I play (and have only played) in a time of easy epics compared to previous eras of the game. There are still many epics that mean something, however, and the idea that gear indicates skill is not entirely irrelevant. Note that I am not saying that high gearscore indicates a player with more skill or knowledge, but that there are certain pieces of gear that one can associate with skill to some extent. For example, if I had to choose between two players, one in a lot of 245 ToC25 gear and one in a lot of 239 gear, I would take the guy in 239 gear without hesitation. The only place you can get 239 gear is Ulduar 25 hard modes, and those were much harder than ToC25 in their day (and still generally require more skill) and should presumably indicate at least some skill.

The thing that sent my thinking on this particular tangent was the weapons that drop from the Lich King. It is Wyrmfoe's stated goal to kill the Lich King, and after last week's run (one-shot the Lower Spire, including our guild's first ever attempt at Saurfang), I fully believe we are capable of it, even with only 6 hours a week of raiding. The weapon I want from him is Glorenzelg, which is the best weapon I can get from normal mode. My only real problem with it is this: as of right now, it shows the same model in Wowhead as the Citadel Enforcer's Claymore. Blizzard has cautioned against trusting too much to this, but Ensidia, at least, has seen this weapon and made no mention of that model being inaccurate, and the icons are the same. That means that if I get the incredibly awesome weapon dropped by the Lich King himself, the final boss of the entire expansion, presumably the hardest normal mode encounter in the game, it will look the same as if I were wielding the weapon dropped by the first boss of the 10 man version of ICC. I know that it seems kind of petty, but the majority of the drops from Arthas have unique models, and that seems like a good way to show at a glance that a player is at least somewhat skilled. I'm sure that at some point pugs will take him down and /roll to give Glorenzelg out, but at least for a while having that means that a 25 man raiding guild considers you worthy of wielding a drop from Arthas himself. It feels like people should be able to see that at a glance, and not have to inspect you to find out.

EDIT: Turns out Oathbinder, the polearm from the Lich King, is actually better. It also appears to not have a unique model, and I feel the concern is valid regardless.

Ret Pally Talents and Glyphs

The basic talents that you need to raid as Ret are here. That leaves 6 free points to throw around. The most common way to spend those is 5 points in Divine Intellect, giving you a little more mana cushion and a (very, very) slight DPS increase, and the last point in Aura Mastery, giving you something of a raid cooldown. You could spend those 6 points in order to get up to Divine Sacrifice, but that's not very useful without Divine Guardian. There are some flex points in the 5/5/55, theoretically, but most of them rely on someone else to provide a buff or debuff.

Improved BoM - Only one person in any given raid needs to have this, so if you always run with another Ret, one of you might be able to put talent points somewhere else more useful to the raid.
Heart of the Crusader - This debuff is shared among a couple other classes as well, so you may be able to drop it.
Vindication - Not in the standard build, but this debuff (same as Demoralizing Shout/Roar) is considered important. Prot Pallies usually pick it up in their build, and Warrior tanks or bears can put it up (I would imagine DKs too, but I don't actually know :P). The advantage for Paladins is that it happens automatically.

The standard glyphs are on that page, but for the sake of explanation:
Glyph of Judgement - Increases the damage of your best attack. Perfect.
Glyph of Consecration - Significantly decreases the mana expenditure and priority clashes caused by Consecration. Once you have 2 piece Tier 10 you won't be hitting Cons as often, so having it last 2 seconds longer is nice.
Glyph of Seal of Vengeance - This is better than the next choice (Exorcism) if even 3 of the 10 Expertise is useful.

Glyph of Sense Undead - Only minor glyph that can increase DPS.
Glyph of Lay on Hands - Hopefully you won't use LoH much, but it can't hurt to be safe.
(Not Listed) Glyph of Blessing of Might - Makes your BoM last 30 minutes on you. Handy for questing, and if you are giving other paladins something and want might for yourself.

Ret Pally Gearing

The first post I made about playing Ret is here, about ability use. This one is going to be about gearing and stat priority. Gear isn't very complex for a Ret Paladin, but it's the kind of thing you need to know a little about to do right. The short version is get to 8% hit (7 if you can count on a Draenei), gem Strength, prioritize Expertise (up to anywhere from 16 to 23) and Crit for secondary stats.

Hit is the single best DPS increasing stat available to you until the melee cap, pure and simple. Beyond the melee cap, it is mostly useless, and no longer with gearing for. You need 263 rating to be hit-capped against raid bosses. Getting this from gear is much nicer than having to gem for it (when you get hit from gear, it replaces a secondary stat, like Crit or Haste, but when you gem for it, it replaces Strength, which is your second-best stat).

Strength is the next best stat, and since it has no cap, it is the one you will likely gem the most. It's better than AP because of Divine Strength (15% Strength) and Blessing of Kings/Sanctuary (each of which give a non-stacking 10% Strength). It also gives SP through talents.

Expertise prevents dodges and parries, and for us the dodge is the important part, since you should be standing behind mobs. It takes 26 Expertise (NOT Expertise Rating) to push dodges off the table for a raid boss. Expertise is very good, but since the gems are red, you are unlikely to use them. We also get 10 Expertise from the Seal of Vengeance glyph whenever SoV is active.

Crit is very good, especially with the 2 piece Tier 9 bonus. Crits (as with most classes) trigger certain talents and such. There is a cap, but if you are in danger of reaching it as a Ret, you are doing something wrong. Agility is also provides us with Crit, but at a lower conversion rate (though better than everyone else's) and it does not affect spells.

Haste, AP, and ArPen are all hanging around basically at the bottom. You will end up with some of these, and they aren't reasons to reject gear, but you shouldn't generally be seeking them out. Note that many procs are only available in an AP form, not Strength, so you'll be mostly out of luck there.

Spellpower and Intellect provide a small DPS increase, but much less than any physical DPS stats. Don't be that guy.

Dodge, Parry, Block Value, Block Rating, and Defense Rating are all tank stats. No. Just no.

Despite Strength being so good, there are several pieces of leather gear that are better than their plate counterparts for us. This is thanks to way Blizzard's itemization works and our nice Agility conversion. It's annoying, but that's the way it is. This problem will be going away in Cataclysm, but until then, we're stuck with it.

For gemming, you will be using Bold Cardinal Rubies (+20 Strength) in all red slots, all but one blue slot. The blue slot that will give you the best bonus should be filled with a Nightmare Tear (+10 All Stats). Yellow sockets that will give you a bonus of at least 4 strength (per yellow socket) should be filled with either Etched Ametrine (+10 Strength, +10 Hit) or Inscribed Ametrine (+10 Strength, +10 Crit). Your meta gem will be the Relentless Earthsiege Diamond (+21 Agility, +3% Crit Damage). There is a +21 Crit version, but it requires 2 blue gems, and is therefore a DPS loss.

Ret Pally Button Mashing and Abilties

Retribution Paladins are often derided as "facerollers," and to be brutally honest with ourselves, that's not entirely inaccurate. If I recall correctly, the difference between the best priority system possible and the worst one starting with Judgement is only about 5% with 2 piece Tier 10, the kind of difference that gets eaten up in RNG. This is not to say that you shouldn't do your best to play well, because the better priority will still do more damage more often, but more as a point to be aware of.

The ability to mash buttons well is absolutely key. I know that sounds like an oxymoron, but in order to do Ret well, you should be hitting the button for whatever ability is next from about half a second before it comes off cooldown until you get the response from the server that the ability went off.

The first thing that should be said about abilities is that you should ALWAYS be hitting a button if you have a useful DPS ability available to you, with the possible exception of Holy Wrath. Delaying any ability in order to wait for a higher DPS ability is a DPS loss, even if you are waiting .2 seconds to hit Judgement instead of Exorcism. Seriously, just hit the button. Secondly, we give our abilities priority based on their DPS, not based on their damage per cast.

There are 3 priority systems, only one will apply to you, based on what set bonuses you have. These are all for single target dps. All of these assume access to at least Tier 9, since that is really easy to get these days.
2 Piece Tier 9 - Judge > HoW > CS > DS > Cons > Exo
2 Piece Tier 9 and 2 Piece Tier 10 - Judge > DS > HoW > CS > Cons > Exo
4 Piece Tier 10 - Judge > DS > CS > HoW > Cons > Exo

That should do it for a "rotation" guide. Any questions, comments, whatever, drop a comment and I will do my best to answer them or at least refer you to someone who can.

Nice to Meet You

So I've decided to make a blog about my experiences, opinions, whatever, with regards to playing World of Warcraft, and likely about other random things in my life once in a while. I don't know how often I'll be updating or anything, probably depends on whether or not anything interesting happens in the game.
I'll also be writing various guides about how to play, mostly nothing too different from the standard stuff, but with whatever personal advice I feel like throwing in, and written the way that I feel like it. Hopefully they will be easy enough that some of those bad pugs we've all run with would understand.
As far as my history with the game, it's not too complicated, and not really long. I've been playing since the beginning of 2009, started as a Blood Elf Paladin, planning to run as protection for endgame. Retribution was much more fun to level, and once I started playing it in the endgame, I didn't really want to tank anymore because whacking things with a big axe or sword is great. My offspec these days is holy, but I really don't use it much, so don't expect a lot of information from that perspective. I found a guild I was happy with for quite some time, until the guild leader and I had some personal issues. I was looking around for a new home when I found out about Wyrmfoe, so I faction and server transferred.
Now I'm a dwarf paladin playing retribution in what would I guess be a semi-casual raiding guild. I don't do alts much, so none at 80, but a few at various levels below. I'll talk about them once in a while as well, I suppose.
Anyway, I know this wasn't too exciting, but hopefully I'll be able to entertain anyone who reads this as time goes on.