Orvillius's Journal: Fall of the Lich King

   Aboard the Skyfire, as it flies to the south on a mission vital to kingdom of Stormwind’s future, Orv takes advantage of the down time to continue writing in his journal....

   I traveled through Alterac Valley, helping the Stormpike Guard, hoping to win further allies to travel to Northrend with me, but despite my best attempts those battles raged on. I journeyed through what had been Lordaeron, now called the Plaguelands. Along with a band of heroes I came across Tirion Fordring, living as a hermit. In return for his aid we tried to win his son free from the influence of the Scarlet Crusade. To my great shame I could not save the young man... to this day I suspect Tirion has not forgiven me.

Where Orv has composed a Pre-Raid Gear List

Orv is a protection paladin with Eff the Ineffable! He has been going crazy these past weeks preparing for MoP and has put together a pre-raid gear list for his fellow tankadins.


     I'm  totally pulling a noob moment here and can't figure out how to get my spreadsheet to insert itself into blogger all nice and pretty looking, so I'm going to give you guys the link to the google doc for my Mists of Pandaria Pre-Raid Gear List (For Tanks!). I included heroic dungeon gear, JP gear, VP gear (since you can earn VP without raiding), and crafted gear. I did not include crafted gear that requires raid obtained mats to craft. I did not include quest blues (because I am not as awesome as Vidyala).

    

Orvillius's Journal: Dreams of Lordaeron

   The leather bound journal has accompanied Orvillius since before the assault on Icecrown Citadel, but has seldom been written in. As troublesome dreams plague the paladin in the wake of Horde assault on Theramore, Orv begins to record his memoirs.

   Since the destruction of Theramore my sleep has been troubled. I’ve been dreaming of days long gone by, of the destruction of another city. Somehow the two feel similar, the feeling that everything we know is about to change again. Last night I dreamt of watching Arthas outside of Stratholme... Light was it only 12 years ago? I remember it as clearly as if it were yesterday, but it feels like a lifetime ago. I was full of anger at Arthas. I wanted Uther to put the young prince in his place. We are Paladins, Champions of the Light. It is a sacred calling. It can be a heavy burden but it is our burden to carry. The citizens of Stratholme deserved our best, and Uther was our best. Could Uther have wielded the light to cleanse the plague before it claimed their lives? Could Uther and Arthas and all of us gathered there that day struck down Mal’Ganis before he could flee to Northrend? These bleak thoughts and the change I fear is coming make me feel weary. If change is coming, if we face dangers yet unseen, as we did after Stratholme, I know I the Light calls me to stand as a shield for the good people of the Alliance. I wish this burden would fall upon younger shoulders, but unlike Arthas, I know it is my burden to carry. I never wanted to be a hero, perhaps a strange thing for a paladin to say. The Light called me, I knew there could be no other path, but I never expected to lead me where I am today. In a way, Stratholme was where that path started.

   After Uther could see that I was troubled when he led us away from the city. I confessed that I had wanted to strike Arthas down, that I had wanted to see Uther strike him down. For the first time in my life my loyalties felt divided. Was I a paladin first or a citizen of Lordaeron? Did my duty to my Prince supersede my duty to the Light? I needed time to answer that question and so Uther sent me to Ironforge. I had hoped to find Muradin there, he had seemed so level-headed when I met him in Lordaeron, but he was gone to Northrend, investigating what we came to know as the Scourge, and would not be heard from again until we found him in the Storm Peaks, years down the road. So it came that I was far from home when Arthas returned as a Death Knight. I did not see him strike down his father. I sat safe and comfortable in Ironforge, sharing a drink with the fine dwarven paladins in the Mystic Ward or practicing my craft as an armorsmith. Word was slow to reach us there, and when it did I was far too late to help my homeland.

   I spent years with the dwarves before traveling to Stormwind. There was trouble in Elwynn Forest and Westfall with the Defias... trouble with the scourge in Duskwood, orcs in Redridge. Bolvar was doing his best to keep order in the kingdom, but Stormwind needed its king. I travelled to Theramore, following up on leads that the Defias in Westfall and the Stockades beneath Stormwind had dropped, but hit a dead end there. So I returned to Ironforge to work on my craft, occasionally helping out at with the fighting across Thandol Span, and throughout Arathi. Stromgarde had been staunch allies of Lordaeron once, and it pained me to see the kingdom in such a state. I felt like I was doing good work, but never as though I were a hero. Just one more small cog in the wheel.

   Lady Prestor was revealed as Onyxia and chased from Stormwind. King Varian returned. The Dark Portal was re-opened and I couldn’t have been less involved in any of it. I was happy where I was, trying to make a small difference day by day. News flowed back slowly over the next year... Illidan hunted down and killed. Kil’jaeden’s plan foiled, the Sunwell reignited. All good news, but nothing that convinced me to alter my simple life. Perhaps I am being too sentimental here, it is true that I was never fully content. I wanted something more... more meaningful, but I trusted the Light would guide my path. So I crafted armor, and I chased orcs and trolls around Arathi, and I tried to ignore the pain of a lost home.

   Then came the Scourge sweeping down from the North. The call went out for brave souls to travel to Northrend and prepare to face the Lich King and it was as though a fire was lit within me....

   The paladin closes his journal as a message arrives to tell him that Varian Wrynn is calling for adventurers for a special mission...something to do with the presence of the Skybreaker above Stormwind Harbor. He packs the journal back into his bags, trusting that he will find time to continue his story.

Arcane Mage Guide for Patch 5.0.4

Nymphy is an arcane mage who logged into the post 5.0.4 patch World of Warcraft and noticed two very huge things. 1.) Her UI wasn't as broken as she feared! Yay for quick addon updates, she salutes the addon writers for being super prepared! 2.) Uhhh, her spec however, WAS broken, and broken beyond repair.


(Important Note for the Reading Impaired: Arcane mana regen has totally been fixed. For an actual Arcane mage guide please see the link at the bottom of the post.)

So! Here is my super handy guide for surviving as an arcane mage until Mists of Pandaria is released in a month.

1.) Run to the target dummies or perhaps even a heroic dungeon to test out new rotation.

2.) Immediately commence QQ because OMG MANA?! WHERE DID IT GO?!!!

3.) Realize that you don't get your major mana regeneration talent until level 90.

4.) Respec into Frost as right now there is simply no way you can sustain an arcane rotation on the fixed mana pool without mana regen.

5.) REFORGE ALL THE THINGS! Then QQ when you realize that you have to reforge ALL that lovely, sexy mastery into...<sigh> haste.
       5a.) Then REGEM ALL THE THINGS! (Not really ALL the things, just like 4 gems for me)
       5b) REGLYPH ALL THE THINGS!!!!

6.) Go searching for a Frost guide to help you figure out what the hell to do. Find one and slowly figure out a rotation.

7.) Organize your casting bars so they seem to look like they make sense.

8.) Grab a group of your guildies and convince them to accompany you to a Hour of Twilight heroic and eye your Water Elemental suspiciously. (PET BAR?! Uhh, I guess I put him on assist and leave it right?)

9.) Realize with a sinking heart that you can't go back to arcane until level 90 and you might as well get used to playing another spec that you do, hey, actually halfway decent DPS on surprisingly!

10.) Still countdown the month until you can respec Arcane though!

Frost isn't that bad to be honest <gasp!> But Arcane is where my heart stays and lives and it is where I have found the most enjoyment in playing my mage. I look forward to the Day of Pandas when I can level and respec back into it, but for now I am enjoying playing around with something new.

So hopefully you didn't come here looking for a REAL arcane mage guide for the latest patch, because I am not a huge theorycrafter and you should go here instead. If you did, then I apologize. This "guide" was meant to be a humorous, QQ, mage thing instead of a real thing. Please go to the linked guide, they have super helpful information in an easy to read format. And if you want to L2FrostMage(Nub) then go read Jed's excellent post here.

Patch 5.0.4 Protection Paladin Talents

Orv is a prot pally who, while avoiding doing too much questing in the beta, has been running dungeons the last few months so he can be ready when the new patch drops.

     Happy Patch Day!  This isn't intended to be a complete guide for playing a pally post patch 5.04, just an update to my previous talent guide. If you want a more comprehensive overview Rhidach has a much more in depth post up over here. If you're more the hard numbers type Theck has been breaking down our stat priorities the past few weeks.

Gamer Grrls and Guys: Long Distance to Living Together

   Nymphy is the GM of Eff the Ineffable and regrets the sheer neglect of this blog, especially after the brand new header was installed by the lovely Liala, over at Disciplinary Action. Hopefully this revival in the sheer lack of topics in this in between expansions time, will breathe new life into it. 

   Orv is the emergency back up substitute co-GM of Eff the Ineffable. He heard Nymphy was writing about moving in together and wanted to make sure she didn’t blurt all of his embarrassing habits out to all the readers... then had to put his two cents in.

   *Dusts off the blog, sneezes a couple times* Wow, deserted much? But to be honest, while we are majorly behind on a lot of projects, there really isn’t much WoW material to be had. Yes, Eff the Ineffable is proud to have cleared 2/8 heroic Dragon Soul and knocked out about half the steps for the meta achievements as well. But real life has a way of interfering and that is exactly what happened with us. The biggest news of course is that Nymphy is expecting a baby at the end of November. For those keeping time by when Mists of Pandaria is released, she is due approximately two months into the expansion. The fine people of Twitter have dubbed the baby “Lockling” as it was conceived by a mage (blue) and a pally (pink) whose class colors combine to make purple(ish). Such logic can’t be refuted.

   In other exciting news, Orv and Nymphy are finally moved in together after 18 long months of living in different states, which brings up the core of this post; what happens when two geeks who have been in a long distance relationship finally move in together? Whose nerd swag gets to go on the prominent shelves? How do you behave around each other? Well ladies and gentleman, this is the post for you. The answer to all the questions, including the most important one.... “Where does the cereal go?”

In Which D/E the Tank! Celebrates its First Blogoversary!

   First we would like to first thank our readers. Without you guys, this wouldn’t have been nearly so much fun. It is hard to believe that we have been around a year. Well, to be technical we realize that we are a week late, however cast your eyes to the top. See that? Yes! It is our new header! Courtesy of the lovely Liala over at Disciplinary Action we have a nice new shiny! We thought it would be apropos to save our big first year post to also commemorate a new header as well!

   But Nymphy, you promised us babies! I do want to apologize for the severe lateness in two of our Epic Baby Posts. I also promise that we will put them together as soon as possible if not this weekend. Real life has eaten my time and Orv’s as well. We have not forgotten and you shall get your dose of squee here soon!

   This past year has been an amazing experience, both in doing the baby posts and others. The whole blogging, WoW, and Twitter community has been so supportive in helping us turn a maybe thing into a very fun and real thing! Looking back over the year that we have been writing this blog we are very humbled by the people who read and enjoy it. So to all of our readers, commenters, twitter followers, friends, romans, countrymen, thank you for joining us time and time again as we try to make you laugh, make you think, make you a better tank (whether of mobs or the floor), or make you squee at adorable babies. (We promise the rest of the baby posts are coming!) We will also try to up the posting rate. Twice a month, if that, is terrible and we are sorry! We do hope you will continue to follow our antics as we go into Mists bubble sheeping through WoW. And pets! And maybe more babies! ;) Definitely more floor tanking! And perhaps another boring tank guide from Orv.

(In case you're reading this in a feed reader, here is Liala's awesome logo!)

Mists of...Say What?!

Nymphy is an arcane mage with Eff the Ineffable who just heard about MoPs. I mean she has an enchanted broom, why not a MoP? She guesses that said MoP is going to revolutionize the way she...wait...*peers at spelling* Oh! MoP as in the new land that revealed itself when Deathwing decided to throw a tantrum and shatter Azeroth as she knew it.

Orvillius is a protection paladin who finds the sudden existence of a new continent that people totally never noticed before completely plausible. After all, have you seen the shipping lanes from Stormwind to Darnassus? (It’s an honest question, Orv would never be caught in Darnassus)

Blizzcon has come and gone and once again there were plenty of shattering revelations. This year’s news has brought about an even greater uproar than most years. So all the furor has Orv and Nymphy digging to see exactly what all the fuss is about.

Haha good one Blizzard... What? They're serious?

Our Search Terms Have Made Us Into the Steamiest Blog on the Net

  Nymphy is an arcane mage for Eff the Ineffable. Recently she discovered that people mistake this blog for information on quite a few different things...Oh my...

  Orv is a protection paladin for Eff the Ineffable. When he isn’t busy trying to find a boss that will drop an epic tank helm (seriously...7 months of raiding...1 tank helm dropped. ONCE.) he’s wondering how some of you found your way over here.

  D/E the Tank is a WoW-centric blog that provides a humorous slant on Orv’s and Nymphy’s adventures in the World of Warcraft. At least that is what WE thought it was. Turns out it is a site for quite a DIFFERENT thing. We have turned out to be the steamiest blog on the net. What with all the floor loving and maybe relationships with certain NPC’s. With that in mind...maybe it doesn’t surprise us as much to see some of the emerging terms that people use to find us and this blog.

Orv is Gonna Get It! Or: Nymphy Comes Home to WAY too much Srsness.

Nymphy is an arcane mage who had to take a break from the internets for a week to deal with the Real Life Boss and comes back to find her funny and witty blog that she writes with Orv completely and utterly ruined by, not one, but two (two!) srs posts.

  See?! This is what happens when I leave. You, the reader, expect to find some humorous content to read in your spare time. Perhaps something to give you a chance to chuckle or smile in your busy day. Instead what did you find this week? Yeah, I hear you. Two srs posts by Orv. I apologize right now if he made you fall asleep. I mean, omgwtfbbq?, who wants to hear about pally talent trees? I lol’d at the names of their talents. All I could see is more of the same ego boosting abilities that I have to listen to Orv go on and on about every night. He tries to explain their importance to me but all I hear is that Peanuts teacher’s voice going blah blah blah I am so great blah blah blah. Orv! Get some real talents that read like mine! How about a little Torment(ing) the Weak or Incanter’s Absorption? Yeah, yeah, Blessing of Kings is great and all that, but you can find that buff a dime a dozen. How about feeling important when everyone is like “Ooh Nymphy! I want Focus Magic” and immediately starts parading their crit numbers in front of you? Yeah that’s right. We don’t need no prissy talents like Pursuit of Justice. You think Internet Dragons care about your pursuit of justice? Nope! Not a bit. They do care when they are on the receiving end of my Improved Arcane Missiles and Arcane Blasts.

  In all seriousness (in the midst of all the tanking is srs business posts) I hope that people got a lot out of the tanking posts. Orv is a super amazing tank (shh! don’t tell him! God I can feel his ego swell from over here!) and knows his stuff. He tanks for me both in game and out and saves my squishy self time after time, so I can vouch for his knowledge of things tankadin. And I fully support overthrowing Team Heals’ tyranny. But not officially, you understand. I mean they keep me alive in raids so if I were to out and out support this venture I would see my floor time increase dramatically followed by suspicious claims that I broke Line of Sight. While standing in the middle of an open field. So never fear readers, your laughs are incoming... as soon as I clean up the mess Orv left around here!

Protection Paladin Talent Guide: For Leveling via Dungeon Finder

Orvillius is a Protection Paladin with the mighty Eff the Ineffable on Azuremyst. With Nymphy away this week he’s abandoned all pretense of being half as funny or witty as she is and keeps putting up serious tanking posts.

NOTE: If you're here looking for patch 5.04 paladin talents, you want to go to the updated guide.

  The other day I was feeling a little bored before raiding time and decided to dust off my level 40 bear druid and spend some time on him. It had obviously been a long time since I’d touched him, because his talent points had been reset. When I went to spend those points I realized that I have no idea where to put them. A couple of helpful twitterfolk pointed me towards their own specs or helpful guides, but the experience got me wondering whether there are people out there who are as confused by the Prot Tree as I was by the Feral Tree. I hope this is helpful for any brave folk who have decided to level up as a Prot Pally, and find themselves unsure of exactly how useful all of these talents will be. The talents are listed in the order I think it is best to fill them out. Some of this is a matter of opinion and if you’re leveling with a healing buddy/dps buddies you may need to swap the order around a bit to better match up to your needs!

Eff the Healers, Let's Have a Tank Circle!

Being a tank for Eff the Ineffable, Orvillius is particularly sensitive to the tyranny of healers. What with their members only healing channel and their posh sense of entitlement, seeing this Circle of Healers reboot floating around was just too much! Using ancient Paladin secrets (replacing ‘heal’ with ‘tank’), Orv reforged the healer meme into a mighty tanking meme.

1. What is the name, class, and spec of your primary tank?
Orvillius, human protection paladin, 0/31/10

2. What is your primary group tanking environment? (i.e. raids, pvp, 5 mans)
I mostly tank EtI’s 10 man raids. I used to pug weekly 25 mans in WotLK, but with the raid lockout change that became impossible.

3. What is your favorite cooldown for your class and why?
That’s a tough one, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say the new Holy Shield. It’s on a super short cooldown, so I can pop it any time I feel like my healers might need a little breathing room.

A Challenge In Which You Find Out More About Us!

It occurred to us that you, the readers,might be wondering exactly who we are. In the course of a month we shall endeavor to educate you through screenshots and explanations of said screenshots. All of you on Faceyspace will recognize it as the 30 Day Photo Challenge. Rather than hop on board the 20 Days of WoW Challenge bandwagon, we decided to take the 30 day challenge and WoW-ify it.