A shared topic suggestion over at Blog Azeroth finally prompted me to set down my top 10 memories. This is something I was intending as one of my first blog posts, a few things have changed since then, and some great memories added to the list.
Not quite making the list is my number 11 - winning the tier 4 shoulders on our first kill of the High King, the first time I've won tier epic loot. Mainly a milestone because I'd always assumed, back when Molten Core was where you went to raid, that I'd never be a raider. Also because, after a nightmare first few nights in Gruul's Lair, it seemed questionable whether we'd get the momentum to step up from Karazhan to 25-man raiding.
10. Mana battery - Although the most important roles in a raid group are arguably the main tank and healers, most of the time they / we don't get much in the way of appreciation, unless someone has done something obviously outstanding. As a shadow priest you seem to get much more in the way of vocal support, just for being a mana battery.
9. Bandages in Maraudon - fortunately I wasn't one of those healers who only level First Aid at the level cap. As Tukkillen, my priest, a particularly bad pull in Maraudon - where we fought our intended victims followed by two patrols in a row - I managed to save when out of mana by bandaging myself, then one of the DPS, and lastly healed the tank using mana I'd regenerated during the bandaging. I'm not sure anyone else in the group noticed, but I was pretty pleased with myself.
8. Helpful people - this really deserves a higher place, but not enough specific incidents stick in my mind. However, for all the gankers, the ninja looters, the drama queens and the plain insufferable, there are equally times when strangers go out of their way to help you for no benefit to them.
7. Making a killing on the Auction House - I came to the game late, so was approaching the level 40 mount cash crisis while lots of other players were gearing themselves up for Molten Core. Fortunately I was a herbalist at just the right time, when Kingsblood was the only way to grind rep with the Thorium Brotherhood for certain brackets. I knew nothing of why, but one day a guildie announced that they would pay 1 gold for a stack of Kingsblood, sent to him Cash on Delivery. This was a lot to me, so I duely sent him a stack, but he must have been innundated as it was returned a few days later. That weekend I put the same stack on the AH for 5g, which was a huge amount of money to me at the time. Those raiders paid for mounts for first my warrior, Shank, then for Grulnak, before the market calmed down somewhat.
6. Tanking Zul'Farrak - as a shaman. We were having a really bad run, with a classical bad warrior tank who only believed in tanking one target per pull. We'd had a number of wipes, and everyone was getting grumpy with the general lack of mutual trust that develops in that situation. After a last wipe on the "friendly" witchdoctor the warrior quit, and no replacement could be found. Back then a shaman could generate pretty good aggro with Rockbiter, Earth Shock and Lightning Shield, and I considered myself a pretty good tank on my warrior, so I volunteered to give it a go. For some reason the group agreed, and we proceeded to clear the place as a careful, focussed 4-man party.
Saturday, 9 August 2008
Monday, 4 August 2008
Some weekend thoughts
I'm getting more and more hopeful that Blizzard is getting on top of the tanking shortage. Although with my usual caveat - the shortage is only there for PUGs, not guild groups or raids, at least in my experience.
The problems with tanking to my mind are (a) it's rewarding rather than fun, and stressful, (b) for warriors, and paladins to a lesser extent (they can AoE grind) if you're specc'd to tank that's pretty much all you can do and (c) to be able to tank an instance you need to have gear nearly on-par with what the instance drops, whereas dps and healers can visit the same instance with a lesser level of gear (at least, in general). Another issue is that, unless you're a druid, if you're an off-tank once your tank target is dead you can't contribute much to the raid.
There are a couple of blue replies from Ghostcrawler on a beta thread about Death Knight tanking that seem to indicate that they're aware of these issues and trying to resolve them, although it sounds like they'll be resolved for Death Knights first then possibly for other tanking classes later.
On a totally separate (but still WotLK-related) subject, although I want to try dpsing in Karazhan as enhancement - to see Windfury apply to me for once rather than the melee in my group - elemental dps suits me more from a character concept point of view. However currently my grinding dps gear is about 50% blue elemental gear and 50% epic resto gear that benefits enough from the +damage that healing gear now provides to be not be a replacement priority. However to be a full-strength dpser I should enchant the gear I have, and I'm certainly not going to put damage enchants on my healing gear. This makes me wonder if, in the expansion, resto shamans will put as much emphasis on crit as elemental shamans. Certainly we benefit from criticals to some extent (with talents such as Ancestral Healing benefiting from crit, and Tidal Mastery increasing it) but my resto gear and talents provide considerably less crit at the moment than would be expected from an elemental shaman. So unless the balance of criticals in a typical resto build changes considerably, the expansion's move to Spell Power rather than damage or healing to reduce the necessity for multiple gear sets would seem only a partial implementation.
And of course, the new Spell Power changes are already causing a fuss in some circles, such as this WoW Insider thread. I'm particularly unimpressed with the mage who think's it's unfair, unless they're given healing spells...
The problems with tanking to my mind are (a) it's rewarding rather than fun, and stressful, (b) for warriors, and paladins to a lesser extent (they can AoE grind) if you're specc'd to tank that's pretty much all you can do and (c) to be able to tank an instance you need to have gear nearly on-par with what the instance drops, whereas dps and healers can visit the same instance with a lesser level of gear (at least, in general). Another issue is that, unless you're a druid, if you're an off-tank once your tank target is dead you can't contribute much to the raid.
There are a couple of blue replies from Ghostcrawler on a beta thread about Death Knight tanking that seem to indicate that they're aware of these issues and trying to resolve them, although it sounds like they'll be resolved for Death Knights first then possibly for other tanking classes later.
On a totally separate (but still WotLK-related) subject, although I want to try dpsing in Karazhan as enhancement - to see Windfury apply to me for once rather than the melee in my group - elemental dps suits me more from a character concept point of view. However currently my grinding dps gear is about 50% blue elemental gear and 50% epic resto gear that benefits enough from the +damage that healing gear now provides to be not be a replacement priority. However to be a full-strength dpser I should enchant the gear I have, and I'm certainly not going to put damage enchants on my healing gear. This makes me wonder if, in the expansion, resto shamans will put as much emphasis on crit as elemental shamans. Certainly we benefit from criticals to some extent (with talents such as Ancestral Healing benefiting from crit, and Tidal Mastery increasing it) but my resto gear and talents provide considerably less crit at the moment than would be expected from an elemental shaman. So unless the balance of criticals in a typical resto build changes considerably, the expansion's move to Spell Power rather than damage or healing to reduce the necessity for multiple gear sets would seem only a partial implementation.
And of course, the new Spell Power changes are already causing a fuss in some circles, such as this WoW Insider thread. I'm particularly unimpressed with the mage who think's it's unfair, unless they're given healing spells...
Friday, 1 August 2008
Zul'Aman
My guild has been focussing on ZA again recently, although I've mainly missed out on the place as I've been focussing my limited raiding on the 25 man raids. This week I've been able to raid quite a bit, so got a good look at ZA along with SSC and Kara all in one week.
It's always fun to see some new bosses, although the enjoyment is rather reduced if you fight them once they've already been learned rather than going through the wiping/learning process. I just followed instructions and healed as much as I could. We killed everything apart from Zul'jin - although my guild has killed him before we just couldn't manage it this time, either having problems with the Eagle phase or being battered enough after the Eagle phase that we'd not really be prepared for the Lynx. The Feather Vortex must be one of the most annoying boss mechanics ever invented, although I assume it's rather trivialised if you have a resto druid. We got as far as Dragonhawk once or twice, but in the end had to call it a night.
After the raid I took stock of my Enhancement gear, which is in pretty good shape and really just needs enchanting to make it ready for Karazhan. Another good gold sink there...
It's always fun to see some new bosses, although the enjoyment is rather reduced if you fight them once they've already been learned rather than going through the wiping/learning process. I just followed instructions and healed as much as I could. We killed everything apart from Zul'jin - although my guild has killed him before we just couldn't manage it this time, either having problems with the Eagle phase or being battered enough after the Eagle phase that we'd not really be prepared for the Lynx. The Feather Vortex must be one of the most annoying boss mechanics ever invented, although I assume it's rather trivialised if you have a resto druid. We got as far as Dragonhawk once or twice, but in the end had to call it a night.
After the raid I took stock of my Enhancement gear, which is in pretty good shape and really just needs enchanting to make it ready for Karazhan. Another good gold sink there...
Thursday, 31 July 2008
Remember you're a hybrid
A note for my alt-itis - I was only geared enough to heal last night's speed Kara because I've focussed on my main, and got him well geared.
A great advantage of being a hybrid, especially at this stage of the expansion when people are farming raids for badges rather than gear, is that you can pick up some nice drops for your off-specs. I got 2 nice pieces of enhancement mail from the run, as well as the badge haul and the two tier pieces.
It occurs to me that I need to take advantage of being a hybrid more often, and occasionally spec out of resto for PvE. This might add a bit more fun, and might even make me give up on a few alts - who knows.
A great advantage of being a hybrid, especially at this stage of the expansion when people are farming raids for badges rather than gear, is that you can pick up some nice drops for your off-specs. I got 2 nice pieces of enhancement mail from the run, as well as the badge haul and the two tier pieces.
It occurs to me that I need to take advantage of being a hybrid more often, and occasionally spec out of resto for PvE. This might add a bit more fun, and might even make me give up on a few alts - who knows.
Wednesday, 30 July 2008
Love my guild
I was pottering about in Nagrand when our raid leader proposed a speed Kara.
Plenty of interest from DPS, but only me as healer, until another shaman respecced resto. I was pretty confident we could do it with only 2 healers, the leader was a bit unsure until I assured him it'd be fine.
2 hours and 30 minutes later we'd cleared the place - 2 healers makes for an extra dps spot, which in turn makes the healing easier! One wipe on Netherspite - everyone was too spread out for us to keep up with the healing - and one on the trash just after Chess when a patrol joined in and we'd not quite got our act together after the event.
Even better, I finally got both of the tier 4 drops out of there - a good roll on the helm and being the only needer for the gloves. Just the legs to go and I'm full tier 4..! Oh, and of course we netted a stack of badges apiece.
The full epic mail healing goal can be ticked off now. We may be casual raiders, but we're damn good at it.
Plenty of interest from DPS, but only me as healer, until another shaman respecced resto. I was pretty confident we could do it with only 2 healers, the leader was a bit unsure until I assured him it'd be fine.
2 hours and 30 minutes later we'd cleared the place - 2 healers makes for an extra dps spot, which in turn makes the healing easier! One wipe on Netherspite - everyone was too spread out for us to keep up with the healing - and one on the trash just after Chess when a patrol joined in and we'd not quite got our act together after the event.
Even better, I finally got both of the tier 4 drops out of there - a good roll on the helm and being the only needer for the gloves. Just the legs to go and I'm full tier 4..! Oh, and of course we netted a stack of badges apiece.
The full epic mail healing goal can be ticked off now. We may be casual raiders, but we're damn good at it.
Tuesday, 29 July 2008
More positive tanking
A good night last night. Shank, my warrior, was accepted into Grulnak's guild, and promptly asked to tank Slave Pens. I was a bit unsure of it as I was the minimum level for the instance, but the healer was happy to try it so in we went.
An interesting group - 62 paladin healer and 66 paladin, 63 hunter (one of the guild leader's alts) and 70 enhancement shaman for DPS. The run mainly reinforced what everyone knows already - a guild run is much more fun than nearly any PUG. I happily left the shaman to off tank the kill target and just looked for aggro on everything else. The fun on boss fights was to see if I could keep aggro at least most of the time! My tanking was better thanks to last week's practice, but mainly because I was working with the group not fighting against them.
An interesting group - 62 paladin healer and 66 paladin, 63 hunter (one of the guild leader's alts) and 70 enhancement shaman for DPS. The run mainly reinforced what everyone knows already - a guild run is much more fun than nearly any PUG. I happily left the shaman to off tank the kill target and just looked for aggro on everything else. The fun on boss fights was to see if I could keep aggro at least most of the time! My tanking was better thanks to last week's practice, but mainly because I was working with the group not fighting against them.
Saturday, 19 July 2008
Step one: acceptance
Im coming around to the view that, however sensible it might be from a real life perspective to only play one character, alt-isis is something I'm stuck with.
Anyway, I've started up Shank (my warrior) again - must stop reading warrior blogs, perhaps that will help!
I was pottering around in Hellfire Peninsula doing that damn quest where you have to kill the fel cannons (it's noticably difficult compared to others of the same level, but I was starting to love fury dps again) when a call in General came for a tank. Not a great run, although I won't go into details, but in some ways quite a good reality check.
I'm fairly sure I used to be a pretty good tank, but now I'm only a fairly average tank - although a lot better than some I've run into! Partly it's rustiness (things like I was forgetting to use Shield Block to make Revenge light up) and partly I can get a bit flustered when things go wrong early in the pull - perhaps because I don't quite have confidence in myself, or perhaps because I don't have confidence in the dps...! I am starting though to learn things like letting the aggro-monster mail wearer off-tank skull, then just concentrating on keeping everything else off the healer.
The tank shortage also seems to be wearing off a bit. I think this has partly been self correcting, as people have seen the shortage and levelled tanks. And it's worth remembering that on the day when you're on your tank you can be in a group that then needs a healer.
I think the rumoured changes in WotLK should help things further - if Death Knights can tank with any talent tree (i.e. just specialising in different directions) then hopefully warriors will also be able to tank while also having a spec that lets them quest. There's also the possibility that we'll be able to switch between two talent trees, which will help even further. That will hopefully fix the tank shortage for 5-man groups (and in anything larger healers remain more in demand than tanks).
Hence, at least for now my plan is -
Anyway, I've started up Shank (my warrior) again - must stop reading warrior blogs, perhaps that will help!I was pottering around in Hellfire Peninsula doing that damn quest where you have to kill the fel cannons (it's noticably difficult compared to others of the same level, but I was starting to love fury dps again) when a call in General came for a tank. Not a great run, although I won't go into details, but in some ways quite a good reality check.
I'm fairly sure I used to be a pretty good tank, but now I'm only a fairly average tank - although a lot better than some I've run into! Partly it's rustiness (things like I was forgetting to use Shield Block to make Revenge light up) and partly I can get a bit flustered when things go wrong early in the pull - perhaps because I don't quite have confidence in myself, or perhaps because I don't have confidence in the dps...! I am starting though to learn things like letting the aggro-monster mail wearer off-tank skull, then just concentrating on keeping everything else off the healer.
The tank shortage also seems to be wearing off a bit. I think this has partly been self correcting, as people have seen the shortage and levelled tanks. And it's worth remembering that on the day when you're on your tank you can be in a group that then needs a healer.
I think the rumoured changes in WotLK should help things further - if Death Knights can tank with any talent tree (i.e. just specialising in different directions) then hopefully warriors will also be able to tank while also having a spec that lets them quest. There's also the possibility that we'll be able to switch between two talent trees, which will help even further. That will hopefully fix the tank shortage for 5-man groups (and in anything larger healers remain more in demand than tanks).
Hence, at least for now my plan is -
- Shaman main
- Warrior tank alt (ideally geared enough to tank a heroic, but nothing further)
- My rogue for sneaking around, opening lockboxes, and disenchanting greens
- And a balance / resto druid for seeing the Alliance side of the game
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