Yep, that’s right… not so long ago, she made a Shaman. I asked for advice, we got some great advice… she played to 16 and decided to ask “what else we got to choose from?”

So she made a Paladin.

Benefits? Heavy armor, heals, bubbles and great Blessings and stuff. All sorts of craziness. Rezzes and general fun.

She just dinged 15, she seems to be having fun so far.

Guess what? Another class I haven’t played much, my alt got to 12… and as much as I love it, it’s my “I want to level this next after my Priest dings 70″ class, but I still only got to 12.

Now, she has been rocking the joint solo, it’s true. But she asked me my opinion on what her next Talent point should be spent on, after she showed me she had 3/5 in Might and 3/5 in reduced Mana cost of seals and judgments, and I said “I dunno”.

I looked at her seals and judgments. She told me she liked the reduced cast time of Judgment idea. I thought maybe reduced mana cost and might to max first, myself.

Here’s the thing. Looking at it from a ‘what the Talent and tooltip says’ point of view, it looks like you should pop Seal of the Crusader on a bad guy and instantly Judge it to get the holy damage DoT… and then follow it up by popping Seal of Righteousness to maximise your Holy damage in conjunction with your Judged effect. After those two are up, leave it be and whack him to death. So reduced mana cost, good. But if you’re only popping one Judgement per bad guy, then what the hell do you need with a reduced cast time for?

I guess. I don’t freaking KNOW though.

She asks me “What gear should I use? Is the ‘of the tiger’ good, or should I take ‘of the bear’?”

I don’t freaking know. Strength and Stamina is what I tell her, followed with Intellect for a larger Mana pool. What the hell do I know though? Maybe Agi is good? Spirit?

So here is my challenge to the Paladin bloggers out there. (Banana Shoulders, yes you too…)

Cassie could use two things.

1) A guide to what Talents to choose while leveling as a soloing damage dealing Pally. And WHY to take those Talents at each stage. Just posting a spec is lame, I want a reason, a rationale, I want to know what you’re thinking when you say to put 5/5 in Might at that point in time, or whatever. If you got a guide already, then say so. If you don’t… well, I feel pretty certain your readers would darn well LOVE to see one! And that would bring readers knocking at your door to learn from your wisdom….. hint hint. 

2) A guide to how you manage your abilities, your seals and judgments and auras and such as you level, to maximise your usefulness and damage output. It seems clear that your damage output changes drastically depending on what order you use things.

Think about it… I’ve had folks in Trade channel tell me that the only way to level a Pally is Prot… well, gee, thanks for the info. That’s good to know. That is so illuminating.

How about telling me WHY?

If you want to make a flat declarative statement, back it the hell up with your reasoning. Just saying ’cause that’s the way it is done, noob’ does nothing but tell me you don’t know, you’re just parroting something you read at Elitist Jerks and were too stupid to understand yourself.

Oh, and that’s not a shot at any blogger whatsoever… that’s my response to the people that share their lack of knowledge and canned responses on the Trade channel when I ask questions in the game. 

How’s about it? Paladins, start your engines! Lead us to your Blessings of Wisdom!

(Yes, I know, I could go do my own research at Wowwiki, Elitist Jerks, the Official WoW Paladin forums, the forums of WoWhead, and my fellow blogger’s websites myself. But ya know, I don’t take enough opportunities to give my fellow bloggers the lovin’ they deserve as it is. That’s why I do these things. It’s not cause I’m lazy at all. Uh uh. No way.)

Okay, saw Iron Man today, left the theatre about 30 minutes ago.

I got a few points, no spoilers, I promise.

If you do not like Robert Downey Jr, do not see the movie expecting the rest of the film to carry it off. The film is very good, yes, but if you are not into his particular sense of humor, such as he displayed in Air America, then just don’t. In my opinion, he puts out an excellent performance. I did not, at any time, feel that he hit the wrong note or came off cheesy. In fact, I’d have to say that some moments that SHOULD have felt cheesy, his performance gave gravity and emotional content. Well done.

You should know going in that this movie, like every other super-hero movie, has to establish the ‘origin story’. You know damn well what I mean. They have to take the central character and lead you through the process by which he becomes the hero you expect. Some movies short-cut this path, like The Incredibles, or the X-Men. But even there, you meet someone (such as Rogue) that is seeing the unfolding of the story with fresh eyes.

Spider-Man, Daredevil, The Hulk, Batman and Batman Begins, Superman… you know the drill. The first movie establishes all the backstory and origin, so that the movies that follow can focus on the adventure and character growth from then on.

I think it can safely be said that the best ‘origin story’ in movie form is an ALL origin story, that being “Unbreakable”… a movie that I flat out loved, but got bad reception in most places. If you didn’t like Unbreakable, that’s fine… I loved it, and the film itself stopped at the moment the origin was over. The other super-hero films all at least show you the first official battle of hero versus villain as the ‘payoff’.

How does Iron Man compare as a origin film?

I felt it did an outstanding job. I personally rate them all on ‘how likely am I going to be to watch this damn origin crap over again in the future’.

I rate this one a ‘highly likely’. I enjoyed many things about it over all… the acting of Robert Downey Jr was very enjoyable for me… he really brought the role of genius designer/wealthy playboy to life, and his transformation from utterly irresponsible to overwhelmingly responsible for his actions and the actions of his company was very well done. And the action was well done every step of the way, not just in the very end like some films.

As an aside… Gwyneth Paltrow plays his assistant, and I think that she was outstanding. She in no way ‘phoned it in’. Again, well done. For an actress I never really felt had a vital screen presence, she really had a punch on screen, she contrasted well against Robert Downey, something that surprised and pleased me.

The Iron Man armor, and the action scenes… ah, the action. In my opinion, just right. It left me wanting more, but I felt that, looked at objectively, they gave me way more than I deserved in this film. Unlike The Transformers film, where I walked away saying “How many times did they think I needed to see a close up of robot feet running?”, there were many times in Iron Man I heartily enjoyed the way they rolled out the action. They gave me just the right amount of geek love over the suits’ design, but not too much. And the test sequences were outstanding. Just, well done.

There were a few moments, some scenes that I expected to fail. Do you know what I mean? You see the set up of a scene, a scene you’ve seen dozens of times in other shows… the ‘press conference’, or the ‘two old friends see love in each other for the first time’, or ‘the confrontation of bad guy and amateur spy’, and you expect them to do the obvious, the blah blah blah… same old, same old, we are in an origin film, so they’re playing it safe or predictable. Umm, no. They did it their way, and kept it fresh.

I feel that they surprised me, either by the quality of the dialogue and self-conscious nature of the characters being well aware of the trite nature of the moment and playing it well, something that I thought rocked, or just by having twists that I enjoyed more than the same old boring sendup of a scene.

Maybe the closest I can come is by saying that the dialogue and acting reminded me of the way Buffy and Angel was… in that there was a snappiness, a bouncy “I live in the real world, I have tattoos you can’t see and a life when I walk offstage, I am allowed to have a personality other than bosses assistant #1″.

All in all, I really enjoyed the movie… BUT I felt that it ended on a bit of a flat note, though.

What do I mean? They had a good ending, a fun one that was perfectly in keeping with Tony Starks’ character, and then the credits rolled… as a final moment, I felt that it was just a little soft. It didn’t pack a wallop and leave me wanting more NOW damnit!

The credits rolled, and the patrons hung around for a while, but after it switched to background music and a long stream of white names on flat black background, the theater emptied.

I, however, had been told by a Sidhe Devils Bear to sit and wait to the very end.

Fine, what, blooper footage? I don’t know. The Bear did not elaborate. But ever since Smokey and the Bandit, we’ve learned that some movies decide to have that last little bit more. Ferris Buellers’ Day Off took it to new heights, of course. Seeing Ferris walk in bathrobe out into a hallway, and talk to the crowd asking them what the hell they were still doing in the theater was priceless. But these days, you never know if there might be something or not.

So I sat and waited. Through the hour-freaking-long credits. Seriously, looooong damn credits.

And then, after everyone in the packed theatre had left but me and 4 other diehards… it was silent. Blackness. Movie was over, damn it.

I got suckered? 

But no! No it wasn’t over. Music came up, the screen lit, and one final, relevant scene happened.

Not a throwaway scene. Not a blooper. A real, honest to God 30 second to one minute scene that was the true final end of the movie.

And watching it, I kid you not, my body was covered with goosebumps. I shivered in reaction to the incredible, unholy awesomeness of the scene. I could barely hear the dialogue through the “Oh F&(K YEAH!” coming from the other watchers in the theatre.

Don’t leave the theater. Wait for the credits. If you saw the movie already, and missed it, I’m sorry. Don’t look for a spoiler to give you a cut and dried retelling of it. Go see the damn movie again.

I’m sorry, that’s just the way it is.

And after that ending, I left the theater dying, DYING to see the second film. Damn them.

Damn them all.

And if they don’t make a second movie fulfilling the promise of that scene, I will hunt them down like the scum they are.