The Light and How to Swing It: Looting the Crimson Halls
by Gregg Reece 
Jan 28th 2010 at 6:00PM
We're continuing our looter's guide to the Icecrown Citadel. This week we're delving into the Crimson Halls. This is the vampire wing of the citadel and they're kicking it up in style. There are the pretty-boy vampires complete with glitter as well as the vampire vixen leading them. If only Buffy Summers were in my guild, this place would be cake. However, she'd probably end up in love with one of the blood princes and then they'd become good guys for a while which makes us start to care about them only to find out that it was all an elaborate ploy to trick the slayer into a ritual to turn the high school into a demonic portal to hell. Wait, I think I've actually seen that one.
The Blood Princes three
Kite the orb of fire, kill the bomb, and let the hunter tank the shadow guy. Wait, didn't we kill some of these guys already? And did he just use glitter on me? Ack! They're Twilight vampires! Let's stake them and see what they bought with their movie deal money.
- Holy
- Heartsick Mender's Cape - 10 man - Cloak upgrade time. We've got a red socket and it bumps up our haste as well as mp5.
- Cerise Coiled Ring - 10 man - This ring has a bit more intellect than stamina, which is always good in my opinion. It has a red gem slot and has crit and haste with the lion's share of the itemization going to crit.
- Mail of Crimson Coins - 25 man - If you don't have a resto/elemental shaman in your raid, you could probably swipe this chest piece. It has three gem sockets (red, yellow, and blue)with the equip stats as haste and mana per five. It actually has quite a bit of mp5 if you're looking for that.
- Crypt Keeper's Bracers - 25 man - These are a pair of crit and haste bracers. They've also got a yellow gem slot you could toss an intellect gem into.
- Incarnadine Band of Mending - 25 man - This ring is awaiting a blue gem of your choice (or a completely different gem if you're so inclined). Its other stats are crit and mp5 with the itemization lean towards mp5.
- Protection
- Spaulders of the Blood Princes - 10 man - These plate shoulders have a significant amount of health available to them. It's leaning very very heavily towards stamina over strength at almost two to one ratio. It also has two blue gem sockets on them which you could load up with stamina gems. Other things which aren't stamina include a bunch of defense rating, some parry, and some hit. However, you get these purely for the health pool bump. Don't forget to go grab your shoulder enchants from those Hodir boys.
- Royal Crimson Cloak - 25 man - This is a pretty universal tanking cloak. It has a bunch of stamina, defense and dodge rating in equal parts as well as a little bit of hit. It also has a yellow gem slot as well.
- Taldaram's Plated Fists - 25 man - These gauntlets aren't as heavily stacked towards stamina as other items we've been looking at, but stamina is still at an advantage. There are two gem slots colored in red and blue. The defense rating and parry rating seem to be the main stats on here, but it also has a decent amount of dodge rating as well to help you get out of that Icecrown radiance funk.
- Retribution
- Battle-Maiden's Legguards - 10 man - This set of legs has three gem slots in them (two red and one yellow). It's got a lot of haste on it as well as a large chunk of expertise. With the amount of strength you can shove into three gem slots, I'm not complaining.
- Thrice Fanged Signet - 10 man - This crit and haste ring is fairly decent for ten man. You've also got a red gem slot in it for an additional Bold Cardinal Ruby.
- Landsoul's Horned Greathelm - 25 man - It's a pretty simple helm, but includes large chunks of both crit and hit. It has a meta slot as well as an additional yellow gem socket.
- Cryptmaker - 25 man - While not Bryntoll or Shadowmourne, it is a pretty decent two-handed mace. It's nice and slow giving you a bit more power in your swings as well as having some hit rating to make sure you actually connect (but you're already hit capped, right?). The armor penetration isn't all that important unless you're getting a lot of procs out of your tier 10 set bonus, but can be handy in that case.
Oh look, another tank swapping boss. However, you do get to bite people which can lead to all sorts of bad jokes. Just beware the other plate wearers as all of that metal is bad for your teeth.
- Holy
- Cowl of Malefic Repose - 10 man - This is a clothie head piece, so you'll probably have some competition if you decide to nab it. Its main stat is crit, but it also has a nice chunk of haste on it. It has a meta slot as well as a blue slot when it comes to gems.
- Chestguard of Siphoned Elements - 10 man - Another piece of shaman gear (shhh, don't tell them). The chest piece focuses on haste, but has mp5 as a backup stat. The three gem slots in it are two reds and a yellow which can easily be filled with whatever you'd like.
- Tightening Waistband - 10 man - This plate belt has a red and a blue gem socket along it before you add your Eternal Belt Buckle. It's focus is towards haste, but it also has some mp5 on it.
- Blood Queen's Crimson Choker - 25 man - This spell necklace drops from the twenty-five man version. It's got a yellow gem socket in the middle and has a fair amount of both critical strike rating as well as a similar amount of haste in it.
- Bauble of True Blood - 25 man - Let's just start out by saying that there are much better options. Sure, the mp5 is nice and the heal at first glance might be okay, but a free 7k heal every 2 minutes isn't that big of a deal. As a paladin, we can always Lay on Hands in a pinch or get a proc for an instant cast. The only real benefit is that as a trinket, the heal would be off of the global cooldown and instant cast. However, as I said earlier, for PvE, there are much better options.
- Protection
- Veincrusher Gauntlets - 10 man - As with most of the protection gear in Icecrown, these lean heavily towards stamina in its primary stats. It also has both a red and a blue gem slot that you could fill with additional stamina or even some avoidance or threat gems. The equip stats stair step down a bit from each other with defense rating being in the lead followed by expertise and then dodge.
- Icecrown Glacial Wall - 25 man - This shield keeps with the skull motif we've been seeing a lot lately. It honestly looks a bit like Arthas' cereal cabinet door that you pried off while skulking through his kitchen. The block rating on it isn't that high, but it also has some parry rating to go along with it. However, it's almost never a bad time to upgrade a shield to the next tier just for the large chunk of additional armor it brings.
- Retribution
- Collar of Haughty Disdain - 10 man - This plate dps necklace has a fair amount of both crit and haste. It's got a single yellow gem slot in it waiting to be socketed with something.
- Throatrender Handguards - 10 man - These plate gloves are pretty decent, but I wouldn't necessarily break my set bonus for them. They've got a yellow and a red gem socket in them. As far as equip stats go, they're sporting a large amount of hit as well as a nice amount of haste on the side.
- Lana'thel's Chain of Flagellation - 25 man - This necklace is pretty close to the best in slot one for normal modes. They're identical when it comes to strength and stamina, but differ on the rest. The single socket on this one is for a yellow gem and it has expertise and armor penetration on it for its equip stats. This might be something worth passing on if you're saving up your DKP.
- All Paladins
- Conqueror's Mark of Sanctification - 25 man and heroic 10 man - As with the end of each of the major wings in the citadel, the final boss drops a generic armor token. These can be traded in (along with your current version of the tier ten gear) to upgrade its item level a bit. Unfortunately, these do not drop in the normal version of 10 man, but do in every other difficulty.
The Light and How to Swing It tries to help Paladins cope with the dark times coming in Cataclysm. See the upcoming Paladin changes the expansion will bring. Wrath is coming to a close and the final showdown with the Lich King is here. Are you ready for the assault on Icecrown Citadel?Filed under: Paladin, (Paladin) The Light and How to Swing It
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
murphraven Jan 28th 2010 6:16PM
Am I the only one who thinks that the map graphic looks like a vag, a uterus and fallopian tubes?
brucimus Jan 28th 2010 6:28PM
good call...Well they are belfs and belfs do have vags. So yes this makes sense
Tatsh Jan 28th 2010 6:27PM
No offense, but I would love these articles to tell me something that 5 minutes in Atlasloot or wowhead wouldn't. Why are these stats good, what stats are worse than the others, do i want more MP5 as a Holy Paladin, or Haste? What's the Haste Cap? Is there one? These are all things that the type of players (who don't readily know about loot that's been available to look at for almost two months,) who read your articles want to know.
To put my point in perspective, let's say I was interested in Bird Watching. I decide to go look at books about birds, and find two that I like. One book describes a large bird with a small beak and larger than average feet. That's great, but why, as an avid birdwatcher, would I care about this?
The other book tells me that since this particular type of bird thrives in wooded areas it needs a large frame so it can get away from predators, but needs a small beak as it is more beneficial for finding food inside smaller holes found in trees. It also has larger feet as it needs the strength to hold onto the most shaky of brances.
The latter is obviously a more useful product for anyone who likes birds. It not only tells us about the features of something we're interested in, but tells us why we should care!
If an item has MP5 and Haste, is it better than something with Crit and MP5? You tell us that an item has more stats than another, but I want to know why that matters to me as a Paladin. Likewise with Tanking, you barely mention armor rating at all besides on one shield, even though it's a hot subject for debate in ICC for Tanks due to stat configurations shifting due to Chill of the Throne.
I'm not trying to bash the author at all, he's writing for WoW.com and I'm not, he has to be doing something right. The only thing I see though is that this article is either written by someone who knows nothing about Paladins other than Armor Penetration isn't all that hot for Ret, or someone who is lazy. I don't expect you to hold the community's hand and tell then exactly how to min/max their gear, but not even giving any sort of mention about why a piece of better than the other is simply just lackluster writing.
I mentioned in another comment that the Death Knight series on Loot is probably more useful to a Retribution Paladin than this series is. I know there are new columists for Paladins coming along but I can't fathom that there isn't a single person on the WoW.com writing staff who doesn't know rudimentary itemization and statweights for Paladin Specs, or any person who thinks that the level of writing in these articles on Paladin loot is acceptable.
Robert Jan 28th 2010 6:41PM
This.
I appreciate commentary on loot, but with this series we are getting the desert without the main course. It's tasty for sure, but not very filling. I had similar feelings on the multi-part epic on low level paladin tanking. Useful information, but did Paladins need that for a month? Especially as Icecrown was opening...
I mean no disrespect to the author, but there is nothing here for us that even the most casual player doesn't know. The hardcores knew it months ago thanks to this here site here.
Why not articles on glyphing strategies for various fights and trash? Perhaps an informational article about Paladin statistic caps? How about a series of essays about specific boss fights?
nviles1 Jan 28th 2010 6:57PM
There are several websites that give comprehensive and exhaustive explanations on these issues. This article gives a simple list of loot to look for and where it is.
Yes, most people could browse wowhead, wowwiki, etc and come to similar conclusions. But now I personally don't need to. I simply reference this article, and spam the raid with "I hope [this piece of gear I want] drops here!"
Christopher Schmidt Jan 28th 2010 6:58PM
Wait, you want the writer to hold your hand and tell you why you should take a piece with X stat or why one stat is better for you as a paladin then another? This is basic stuff as a player that you should already know if you doing progression content. If you can honestly say by this gear level that you don't know if haste or Mp5 is better for you as Holy Pally, or why taking Stam as Prot Pally is good, or what is Rets opinion of ArP is then you really need to stop and relearn your class, your spec, and your role in a raid.
The point of these articles is to give you a preview of what loot drops in the encounters and a brief overview along with bullet points of its attributes. Its not a tutorial on how and why you should gear. Its a fluff article. Nothing more. If you want an in-depth numbers and theorycraft review go over to EJ or crack open your Atlas loot, open your spreadsheets and figure it out on your own.
Hooch [Quite possibly crazy] Jan 28th 2010 7:48PM
Riveting tales, chaps.
Broken_toes Jan 28th 2010 7:55PM
Fairly sure what the author, and wow.com in general, is thinking is that you know your class by the time your raiding ICC (lets be honest your not downing the princes at fresh 80, welfare epics or no).
They probably don't see a reason to explain haste vs crit to someone when talking about this point in the game.
They also don't know your gear, they don't know what stats you can do more of. If you don't yourself, I pity your group.
All this is, is a shopping list, a means to have the loot available for your spec and class in one place. A means for us folk that can't be arsed running atlas loot, or when we do enable it- save us time looking through it.
Anyone needing they're stats and class explained are as annoying as the skid marks that ask tactics.
Heilig Jan 28th 2010 8:28PM
"Anyone needing they're stats and class explained are as annoying as the skid marks that ask tactics."
But are they as annoying as the people who constantly say "Where did you get that?" when 2 seconds on Wowhead or Atlasloot would have answered their question.
Because that's what this article is, a narration of a ten minute Atlasloot browsing session.
If you're going to go so far as to say anyone looking over this list would obviously know their class by now, you should be honest and admit that someone is FAR more likely to be able to use Wowhead then to have a thorough understanding of how the stats interact.
clundgren Jan 29th 2010 11:51AM
This is the article I want to see:
Title: Retribution Paladins are NOT Overpowered.
The article could start by pointing out various data which show that the ret spec has been in continuous decline since the start of Wrath, and is now the 2nd lowest dps class on ICC boss fights (almost 10% lower than dps warriors!). It could show declining performance by ret in arenas and other pvp. It could show the statistics that prove that our so-called "burst" class is much less bursty than many others.
Then, the article could explore the reasons for the perception that ret is OPed: the history of ret as a laughingstock in Vanilla and most of BC, its sudden ascent just prior to Wrath, and the continual barrage of nerfs since.
I would like to see this article, because it seems that just about every OTHER class feature on wow.com immediately spawns a "yeah, and BTW ret paladins are OPed" thread in its discussion forum (see the recent priest article by way of example). And frankly, we have been nerfed enough. We are sitting one up from the bottom in raid dps rankings now. And we already spent almost 4 years on the very bottom rung of the ladder. We've done our time.
And, fellow paladins, when you read someone posting more "ret is OPed" drivel, please correct them. Refer them to the data that proves otherwise (sites like arena junkies and wow meters online). Because as long as the erroneous perception is out there that we are the "faceroll" and "easymode" class (thanks, BTW, Blizz for those Argent Tournament npc names; real helpful) we are just gonna keep getting nerfed.
Pyromelter Jan 28th 2010 7:12PM
Here's some quick commentary on the blood quarter from my perspective (a mage with a prot and a ret pally in his raid group):
Blood princes
Rets: Don't use Divine Storm on the blood princes. DPS the empowered target.
Prots: Don't use hammer of the righteous. Why? Any cleave effect can hit a purple ball and steal it away from your keleseth tank. You can consecrate away tho; the purple balls are not effected by ground AoE.
Holy: Beacon the Keleseth (ranged) tank. You may actually have to use flash of light unless you can chain cast holy light for a very long time because this fight is about endurance, there is no enrage timer, and mana may become an issue. This fight can go on for 10 minutes, as the DPS will be slow (due to the nature of the encounter). For hordes, make sure you use your racial to regen mana.
Lana'thel
Rets: Assuming a ranged dps like a hunter or mage gets bitten first, you would be a good choice to get bitten by the ranged dpser. Your healing effects will be increased by a lot which will help the healers in what is a very healing intensive fight.
Prots: Tank the queen on the stairs right where she is standing. I know threat isn't an issue for pallies, but remember that the DPS'ers are going to race to get bitten by lana'thel first, meaning you have to make sure you get and hold that aggro, because DPS will be going absolute all out. Side note: Once a person gets bitten and has the debuff "Essence of the Blood Queen," they have zero aggro.
Holy: This fight is meant to last for 4 minutes on 10man mode. I would assume if you downed the blood princes, you probably have the ability to chain cast Holy Light for 4 minutes. Save your biggest healing cooldowns for when Lana'thel flies into the air, that's when the most raid damage will occur. The healers in our 10man did 8k, 6k, and 5k effective HPS on this encounter. Side note: if you are close to getting Val'aynr, get those last shards and down yogg now, because the proc is insanely powerful in this fight.
Aoeadin Jan 28th 2010 7:15PM
"Don't forget to go grab your shoulder enchants from those Hodir boys."
Why would you do this when the PVP Gladiator shoulder enchant gives more effective health for a tank and is by far the shoulder enchant of choice for sword and board tanks?
Baek Jan 28th 2010 7:46PM
While there are some people that would like to know stat weights and all that jazz, this isn't a guide on how to paladin or even how to properly gear yourself guide. This just states the loot, what it has on it and how the item budgets weighted themselves for each piece. This is just fine for what the article is. The reason behind not delving into which piece is better and why is because each paladin will have different gear and one piece may be better for one Paladin than it is for another. For example, Ret Paladin A up at the expertise cap may not want Lana'thels Chain of Flagellation cause the armor pen and expertise is a wasted stat and they'd be better off using something else. Likewise, Ret Paladin B is still using the Glyph of SoC to maintain their expertise cap, for this Paladin it might be enticing enough to grab and switch the glyph out for a different one. Then you have Ret Paladin C, this Paladin has had bad luck with drops and is under the exp cap even with the glyph. Ret Paladin C would probably want this pretty badly. This is where he can't really get into "this piece is more betterer than this one because it has moire exp and crit."
What he did do was perfect, described how the item was weighted out. If Holy Paladin A is lacking in the MP5 department X piece is weighted more in favor of MP5, so Holy Paladin A reading the article thinks oh sweet I will shoot for this piece when it drops, I've been needing the MP5. Is this information that one could glean from searching through drops on wowhead, sure but this is all in one spot and pertains to cloth/mail/plate.
Another thing (and I might be bordering on being a bit of a jerk here) is that if you are fortunate enough to see this content, you hopefully know how to balance your stats properly or have read up on EJ, Maintankadin, Ret Paladin.com or possibly other "The Light and How to Swing It" articles that have covered stats (maybe, haven't read all of them). This is a list of gear that Paladins might want to take a look at and know what stats are on which.
Broken_toes Jan 28th 2010 8:16PM
Actually, if these articles are the shopping list I think they are, could you stick in the emblem set bonus stuff?
I know running icc on my rogue I feel kind of bad having rolled and won items I've then found out I'm goin to replace with set bonus items, specifically in 10 man -I'm happy to hold onto my 251 verdict emblem gloves to roll on that thing I need to turn them into 264's.
Imagine its the same with tanks (minus the massive loot table rogues have). Are you going to roll on, let's say gloves, when you have 58 frost emblems and you've still got to do your instant cast PUG, or are you going to let the other tank with 50 emblems take them while you save for emblem gear?
If this, and the other commentator guides for loot are basically a shopping list, then at least put the links to what you could get with emblems in- your saving us the time of looking up boss loot tables, we know what stats we need (I for one am not looking for a hand to hold). Put in the emblem alternatives and save us more time, please!
Way it stands I'm better off doing a few wowhead searches and sticking to the one site.
Phoenix Dawn Jan 29th 2010 9:28AM
WIthout taking the time to read the novel of comments above me, I thought I would mention that having just dropped Emblems of Frost on Drape of the Violet tower and seeing that the Crimson Halls drops a cape, I did an item vs. item comparison.
Drape of the Violet Tower is significantly better. The only stat difference in which it lacks is haste but it is built for mp5 and crit. It is purchasable for 50 emblems of frost and has a blue socket.
Dixonij Jan 29th 2010 9:36AM
I personally like the 'shopping list' type layout per spec of each wing they've done so far. Yes I am on wowhead in a firefox window running behind my WoW while in raids and I constantly check on what gear drops off the next boss but its nice to see in a clear and concise list just whats good for me off the next guy. Having 10 man and 25 man loot next to each other is also helpful for sure considering weighing whether or not to go for that 25 piece of loot or get something slightly weaker in the meantime off a 10 man boss you've got access to and wait for the next time that 25 man loot drops (in a DKP loot setup especially).