Saturday, 19 February 2011
Monday, 24 May 2010
Ironic achievement
On my eighth kill of the non-heroic Black Knight he finally drops the Black Heart, so of course I roll Need. As of course do the dps DK and druid. A good time to roll 100 :)
Most of the group are happy for me, but not the death knight. I'm not sure it's me who's Needy...
I'm assuming the cross-realm bribery attempt is ignorant, rather than cynical. You can never be sure though!
Most of the group are happy for me, but not the death knight. I'm not sure it's me who's Needy...
I'm assuming the cross-realm bribery attempt is ignorant, rather than cynical. You can never be sure though!
How to enjoy PUG tanking
This isn't actually a general guide, as it only really works for someone in my position -
I need six items from the ICC dungeons and one from heroic Black Knight. So I don't run the original level 80 heroics, with their "gogogo" mentality", only the harder instances where people expect things to be a bit slower and more careful. So the difficulty comes from the mobs, not your group members.
Be humble
When I stuff up I admit it, and hopefully learn from it. And I'll at least listen to advise, even when it's not well presented. Not using Spell Reflect on Devourer of Souls? Doh! But I'm learning, and one day I'll be perfect...
Outgear at least one of your DPS
This certainly helps. It feels a bit wierd the first time you're the best geared in the group, but in a good way.
Confidence in your abilities
Partly it's reassuring to know that, once you have comparable gear to the DPS, you can comfortably hold threat. So all those times you were told you were a noob, it probably wasn't (always) true. It's also nice to know, when the healer randomly dies, you can probably string together some cooldowns and probably complete the fight.
All the stress and grief it's taken to get to this point really has been worth it, and tanking is fun again. I do still need to make more effort on reading up on tactics though, rather than find out the tricks afterwards.
* I have one item from Frost emblems, the chances are I'll never have enough emblems for a second item, so why endure the pain?
- I'm fairly decently geared already
- I'm not raiding, so Frost emblems aren't really of much interest to me*
I need six items from the ICC dungeons and one from heroic Black Knight. So I don't run the original level 80 heroics, with their "gogogo" mentality", only the harder instances where people expect things to be a bit slower and more careful. So the difficulty comes from the mobs, not your group members.
Be humble
When I stuff up I admit it, and hopefully learn from it. And I'll at least listen to advise, even when it's not well presented. Not using Spell Reflect on Devourer of Souls? Doh! But I'm learning, and one day I'll be perfect...
Outgear at least one of your DPS
This certainly helps. It feels a bit wierd the first time you're the best geared in the group, but in a good way.
Confidence in your abilities
Partly it's reassuring to know that, once you have comparable gear to the DPS, you can comfortably hold threat. So all those times you were told you were a noob, it probably wasn't (always) true. It's also nice to know, when the healer randomly dies, you can probably string together some cooldowns and probably complete the fight.
All the stress and grief it's taken to get to this point really has been worth it, and tanking is fun again. I do still need to make more effort on reading up on tactics though, rather than find out the tricks afterwards.
* I have one item from Frost emblems, the chances are I'll never have enough emblems for a second item, so why endure the pain?
Monday, 17 May 2010
Sights I never saw at 70
The Grand Ballroom in Karazhan, with all the guests still dancing.
A great thing about being the tank is you're leading the way and making decisions about pulls (whether or not your group follow them is another matter...).
As a healer you're probably right at the back, and you often only see areas - especially in a raid - when they're partially cleared.
As an encore to Molten Core I thought I'd take a look at Karazhan, with the minor goal of getting the Mongoose enchant for Grulgok. Moroes was surprisingly easy, but I need to go there again with my priest and a tank (as the priest is 180 rep short of exhalted with the Violet Eye - another nagging lose end). I'm not sure which name to refer to my priest with at the moment, as I'm not sure whether to keep him as a dwarf, or faction change him to a Foresaken or a female blood elf.
A great thing about being the tank is you're leading the way and making decisions about pulls (whether or not your group follow them is another matter...).
As a healer you're probably right at the back, and you often only see areas - especially in a raid - when they're partially cleared.
As an encore to Molten Core I thought I'd take a look at Karazhan, with the minor goal of getting the Mongoose enchant for Grulgok. Moroes was surprisingly easy, but I need to go there again with my priest and a tank (as the priest is 180 rep short of exhalted with the Violet Eye - another nagging lose end). I'm not sure which name to refer to my priest with at the moment, as I'm not sure whether to keep him as a dwarf, or faction change him to a Foresaken or a female blood elf.
Saturday, 15 May 2010
"Soloing" Molten Core
Not sure it quite counts - I dual-boxed the place with Grulnak and Grulgok - but I was still pretty pleased to get the achievement.
I'd been as far as wiping to Majordomo in classic WoW, so I'd never seen Ragnaros and this felt like a nagging loose end. WHU's Extreme Soloing guides had given me inspiration (and tactics for most of the fights) so I was pretty sure this should be doable with two fairly well geared 80s, although I had my doubts a few times.
Grulnak was spec'd 40/0/31 - restoration as far as Cleanse Spirit for decursing, then as much elemental dps as possible. Grulgok kept his normal tank spec, which probably wasn't optimal, but since I'm too poor at the moment to get him duel spec it was more convenient for general play.
My main worry was nature and fire immunity (since my only AoE is Thunder Clap, Fire Nova and Magma Totem), but it was a lot better than I expected, with only the fire elementals being flame immune and no nature immunity that I could see. Hence the core hound packs where killable, although some managed to respawn two or three times on me.
The only bosses to cause me problems were those where I needed to move the two characters simultaneously - so one wipe on Gehennas (where running out of AoE and decursing at the same time proved slightly hard), several on Baron Geddon and one on Majordomo Executus.
I was worried for a while that Geddon might not be doable for me, at least not without fire resist gear, as I was just taking too much damage. In the end I switched Grulnak to full resto spec, shielded up Grulgok then ran out of range before running back in to reshield and heal to full when necessary. Meanwhile with Grulgok I just needed to run out of the AoE, pay attention to which direction my healer was in after the disorientation of being blown up, and very slowly "dps" Geddon down.
With Majordomo the major factor was to pay enough attention to Grulnak to notice when he's been teleported into the lava pit, and when he has aggro from Majordomo. I failed on lava awareness the first time around but otherwise he was straight forward.
So I finally got to see Ragnaros in person. A very cool experience, even to my jaded eye.
Again I was worried that here was a boss I couldn't beat. With no real fire resistance Grulgok was punted far and wide, at best taking massive falling damage at worst landing in the lava ring and dying there. Eventually I managed to position Grulgok such that he would land on top of the ridge that Grulnak was using to prevent knockbacks on him, and hence take less damage but most importantly not end up swimming in lava.
Apparently the punt can be addressed by spamming Intercept, and hence never having to worry about where you land.
I'd been as far as wiping to Majordomo in classic WoW, so I'd never seen Ragnaros and this felt like a nagging loose end. WHU's Extreme Soloing guides had given me inspiration (and tactics for most of the fights) so I was pretty sure this should be doable with two fairly well geared 80s, although I had my doubts a few times.
Grulnak was spec'd 40/0/31 - restoration as far as Cleanse Spirit for decursing, then as much elemental dps as possible. Grulgok kept his normal tank spec, which probably wasn't optimal, but since I'm too poor at the moment to get him duel spec it was more convenient for general play.
My main worry was nature and fire immunity (since my only AoE is Thunder Clap, Fire Nova and Magma Totem), but it was a lot better than I expected, with only the fire elementals being flame immune and no nature immunity that I could see. Hence the core hound packs where killable, although some managed to respawn two or three times on me.
The only bosses to cause me problems were those where I needed to move the two characters simultaneously - so one wipe on Gehennas (where running out of AoE and decursing at the same time proved slightly hard), several on Baron Geddon and one on Majordomo Executus.
I was worried for a while that Geddon might not be doable for me, at least not without fire resist gear, as I was just taking too much damage. In the end I switched Grulnak to full resto spec, shielded up Grulgok then ran out of range before running back in to reshield and heal to full when necessary. Meanwhile with Grulgok I just needed to run out of the AoE, pay attention to which direction my healer was in after the disorientation of being blown up, and very slowly "dps" Geddon down.
With Majordomo the major factor was to pay enough attention to Grulnak to notice when he's been teleported into the lava pit, and when he has aggro from Majordomo. I failed on lava awareness the first time around but otherwise he was straight forward.
So I finally got to see Ragnaros in person. A very cool experience, even to my jaded eye.
Again I was worried that here was a boss I couldn't beat. With no real fire resistance Grulgok was punted far and wide, at best taking massive falling damage at worst landing in the lava ring and dying there. Eventually I managed to position Grulgok such that he would land on top of the ridge that Grulnak was using to prevent knockbacks on him, and hence take less damage but most importantly not end up swimming in lava.
Apparently the punt can be addressed by spamming Intercept, and hence never having to worry about where you land.
Thursday, 22 April 2010
Need more rage^H^H^H^H attitude
This post was going to be titled "No more tanking for PUGs", but then I calmed down, and then got irritable.
I've had enough of PUGers like that overgeared ret paladin (who drops consecrate on the portals in VH before the mobs have even appeared) or worse that warlock (who's hurling abuse while waiting for the second boss in Occulus to be pulled, not realising or caring that the shadowpriest is still mounted having got tangled up with a patrol and I've gone back to help out).
I'm geared enough now that the dungeon finder thinks I'm ready to tank Forge of Souls heroic (it went nicely, thanks), so I no longer need to enter heroics in a slightly apologetic fashion on account of my gear.
It's time to make sure that I'm always on top of my own game, and then (ab)use the power given by the fact that few people want to tank PUGs (for some odd reason), and call out those manifestations of Gabe's theory.
If you want to run a heroic in a competent fashion, that's great. If you want to faceroll the Emblem piñata with no consideration for the fact that those other pixels in your group are actually other people, then welcome to the vote kick.
As an aside, I'm not sure whether FoS went well because people know that the ICC heroics are hard and hence pay attention, or I just got lucky, but it was a welcome end to an otherwise not fun evening.
For those not geeky enough to get the title, that's computer literate humour apparently...
I've had enough of PUGers like that overgeared ret paladin (who drops consecrate on the portals in VH before the mobs have even appeared) or worse that warlock (who's hurling abuse while waiting for the second boss in Occulus to be pulled, not realising or caring that the shadowpriest is still mounted having got tangled up with a patrol and I've gone back to help out).
I'm geared enough now that the dungeon finder thinks I'm ready to tank Forge of Souls heroic (it went nicely, thanks), so I no longer need to enter heroics in a slightly apologetic fashion on account of my gear.
It's time to make sure that I'm always on top of my own game, and then (ab)use the power given by the fact that few people want to tank PUGs (for some odd reason), and call out those manifestations of Gabe's theory.
If you want to run a heroic in a competent fashion, that's great. If you want to faceroll the Emblem piñata with no consideration for the fact that those other pixels in your group are actually other people, then welcome to the vote kick.
As an aside, I'm not sure whether FoS went well because people know that the ICC heroics are hard and hence pay attention, or I just got lucky, but it was a welcome end to an otherwise not fun evening.
For those not geeky enough to get the title, that's computer literate humour apparently...
Monday, 19 April 2010
What role to fill in farm content?
Number one daughter woke me at 6am this morning, and being awake I had a couple of choices. I could make an early start on my day's heavy workload, or tank a quick dungeon in the hope of upgrading one of my shockingly poor tanking trinklets.
So I find myself in Azjol-Nerub. Boss one goes down like clockwork. As we get set for Hadronox I notice that the feral druid's dps is fairly low, especially given his Gearscore (4.8k). I wonder if he's phoning it in, or perhaps if the mage (2.3k Gearscore) has somehow managed to AoE his way to the top of the meter. Switch Vigilance to the mage, proceed to down Hadronox, only minorly irritated by the paladin healer pulling the add groups before I'm ready. Essence of Gossamer drops, which more than makes up any worries I have.
Then, on Anub'arak the adds get a bit out of control on the third burrow phase, I fail to tank an elite which eats the healer, we wipe.
Proceed to PUG wipe post-mortem. Do not pass Go, do not collect Emblems of Frost.
First thing first, I apologise for letting the healer die. The tone of the rest of the debate was actually fairly pleasant for a PUG - one of the dps blames the healer, the druid blames the dps (and me by implication) for letting the little adds get out of control, and not killing the elites fast enough (and mentions in passing that he's in PvP gear, hence the low damage for his Gearscore). I'm guessing we were too tired, and too close the end, for any real rancour. Either way no one quit, and we killed the boss fine on the second attempt.
I came away from this wondering, not for the first time recently, if I should give up on tanking altogether. In a more reflective mode, I'm wondering what role do I want to be in on farm content.
I've tried dps. While it has had it's fun moments for me, more often it's routine at best, and I find myself slipping into bad habits with one eye on the Recount numbers. And when a tank or healer drops, or isn't very good, I find myself wishing that I was in one of those key roles.
I enjoy healing, especially in non-farm raids. But on farm content it's very dull and it becomes tempting to be distinctly lax.
I enjoy tanking, when I'm not feeling pressured for speed or by trigger-happy dps. On the plus side, although it does become somewhat routine there's always the need to pay attention - whether because the dps outgear you hence you're struggling for threat, or through bad play or bad luck. Hence it's never as dull as the other roles can be.
My problem with tanking will always be the amount of preparation involved - both being geared and knowing the fights - especially given my relatively limited gaming time. And I'll never enjoy farm content - I'd far rather be switching to a new alt where smaller investments of time can make much greater difference in capability. But if I can keep this in perspective I'll probably keep tanking.
So I find myself in Azjol-Nerub. Boss one goes down like clockwork. As we get set for Hadronox I notice that the feral druid's dps is fairly low, especially given his Gearscore (4.8k). I wonder if he's phoning it in, or perhaps if the mage (2.3k Gearscore) has somehow managed to AoE his way to the top of the meter. Switch Vigilance to the mage, proceed to down Hadronox, only minorly irritated by the paladin healer pulling the add groups before I'm ready. Essence of Gossamer drops, which more than makes up any worries I have.
Then, on Anub'arak the adds get a bit out of control on the third burrow phase, I fail to tank an elite which eats the healer, we wipe.
Proceed to PUG wipe post-mortem. Do not pass Go, do not collect Emblems of Frost.
First thing first, I apologise for letting the healer die. The tone of the rest of the debate was actually fairly pleasant for a PUG - one of the dps blames the healer, the druid blames the dps (and me by implication) for letting the little adds get out of control, and not killing the elites fast enough (and mentions in passing that he's in PvP gear, hence the low damage for his Gearscore). I'm guessing we were too tired, and too close the end, for any real rancour. Either way no one quit, and we killed the boss fine on the second attempt.
I came away from this wondering, not for the first time recently, if I should give up on tanking altogether. In a more reflective mode, I'm wondering what role do I want to be in on farm content.
I've tried dps. While it has had it's fun moments for me, more often it's routine at best, and I find myself slipping into bad habits with one eye on the Recount numbers. And when a tank or healer drops, or isn't very good, I find myself wishing that I was in one of those key roles.
I enjoy healing, especially in non-farm raids. But on farm content it's very dull and it becomes tempting to be distinctly lax.
I enjoy tanking, when I'm not feeling pressured for speed or by trigger-happy dps. On the plus side, although it does become somewhat routine there's always the need to pay attention - whether because the dps outgear you hence you're struggling for threat, or through bad play or bad luck. Hence it's never as dull as the other roles can be.
My problem with tanking will always be the amount of preparation involved - both being geared and knowing the fights - especially given my relatively limited gaming time. And I'll never enjoy farm content - I'd far rather be switching to a new alt where smaller investments of time can make much greater difference in capability. But if I can keep this in perspective I'll probably keep tanking.
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