Thursday, June 17, 2010

It might be time to jump into gearing up again.

Not for my hunter of course, for my bank alt DK and my Druid.  My hunter seems about as geared as I can get it out outside of getting 3 marks to upgrade my chest, shoulder and head.  Past that I need King kills for weapons and heroic ICC for others.  While the crew I run with is solid and getting better as we get more people geared I really do not ever see that happening in the near future.

So it is either run my hunter through the same content over and over every week even though I do not need anything or start gearing up some alts so I can run with my guild with the alts that can actually use the gear.  Sure, if we are short on DPS I am happy to bust out my hunter and kick some boss butt.  I never have a problem with helping guildies.  I just need to have something to aim for when I raid 3 nights a week.  I know my hunter will not be getting any gear so might as well get another one of my characters geared up.

So how do you gear up a new 80?

I hear people cry all the time about how hard it is to gear up a new 80.  It is not that I do not understand their plight but that I think they just refuse to put the effort into it.  So it is their fault, not everyone elses.  Gearing up now is as easy as it gets.  It's so easy a caveman can do it.

Unless you are a tank that is.

Gear up a tank is like pulling teeth but quick. 
Gearing up a healer is okay mostly and does not take long. 
Gearing up a DPS is long and boring but pretty easy.

Tank:
Instant query.  'Nuff said. 
If you are willing to spend the time doing randoms you can gear a tank up to a reasonable level in less then 3 days, maybe even one if you do not sleep much.  Not kidding at all.  Anyone that tells you otherwise is lying.  The LFD tool will assure that you are in a dungeon 24/7 if you wanted to be with no down time at all.  That makes gearing up quick.

People give new tanks no love. 'Nuff said.
Trust me, I tried gearing up my bear.  Didn't make it 5 randoms before I swore to never tank again.  Partly my fault.  While I did read every scrap of information about bear tanking and could quote you what is the best for each situation and how to gear and gem and enchant and nearly everything that needs to be known I did not ever actually do any tanking with it.  No matter how much you read or how many videos you watch you need to learn how to handle situations by doing them.  Not very hard if you run with reasonable people.  Very hard, beyond words hard, when you run with people that will not let you move at your own pace. 

Just one example.  I was looking to get The Black Heart drop from normal ToC5.  We all zone in and one of the DPS says immediately, you are wearing a green trinket, you shouldn't be trying to tank this.  I replied, that is why I am tanking the "normal" version, so I can get the trinket.  I had over a 3K gear score already, more then enough to be tanking heroics, but wanted to get a better trinket because I like to have the best things I can when I do my job, whatever it may be.  Idiots like that make working to gear up as a tank hard.  Those are the same assholes that open up on the packs before you even reach them.  Dude, I am a bear, let me get to them and swipe first before you start pew pewing.  Aggro problems happen all the time while you are learning to tank with people that can not give you a second to get going.  I hate it.

Healers:
3 to 5 minute query.  How can you not love that?
Nearly the same as a tank, if you are willing to take the effort and spend the time you can gear up in no time at all.

The run can go either way for you.
If you have some super tank it is not like you will really ever need to drop more then a DoT on him.  If you get an average tank with stupid DPS you just bitch to the group, let the tank get aggro first and most of the time they listen.  As long as he is geared enough to do the instance and you are geared enough to heal him through it and DPS does not do anything stupid it is easy.

Stupid DPS will still be your bane.  Making you spend time healing them because if they moved they might not be able to do their leet DPS in a heroic.  Dude, if you are doing over 1.5K in a heroic you are doing fine.  That is more then you really even need to do.  Do you think it really make a difference if you do 6K DPS or 7K DPS in a 5 man?  Nope.  And you can not even extend your epeen by doing it because I will probably never see you and your uber leet deeps again.

DPS:
15-25 minute query.  I hope you have a gathering profession to keep you busy and make you some money while waiting.  You will not be gearing yourself up in a day or two like a serious tank or healer could.  Not even three or four.  For even the most dedicated player it is going to take close to a week if only because you will get into a lot fewer dungeons which means less badges which means slower gearing up.  Personally, I suggest doing all the northrend quests and gathering while you wait.  By the time you have enough badges to gear up you will have enough money to buy yourself some ICC crafted gear too.

As a DPS you have the easiest of the jobs in a 5 man.  I say easy, but it seems 90% of the DPS can't do this.  Being you are just gearing up, it will be a lot easier for you.  The idea, say hello when you start, thanks for the run when you end and during it you should always watch your threat and always move when you are supposed to.  If you can do that, even if you have 1K DPS, you will not get much grief.  One of the best things to say if anyone questions your DPS is something polite along the lines of, this is just an alt I am gearing up and learning because I am tried of running ICC 10 and 25 every week on my main and wanted to try something different.  Most people will not question that being it means at the least you know what you are doing.  Remember, even if that is a lie, it will work.

Unless there is some elitist jerk in the group no one will even notice you did 1K and if they did, they will not say anything, they will just joke to their friends about it later.  In most runs I do I am over 50% of the DPS, even on more even runs I pull 40%.  I have never even once mentioned anything about another persons DPS in a dungeon, if anything I would be the one in the position to say something.  There have even been a few times where I ran with someone with such a low DPS that it made me wonder if they were AFK and when someone wanted to kick them I said, no need, we are almost done and we don't need them anyway, let them get their badges so they can gear up.

On the rare chance you do get kicked, which will happen because most people are jackasses online, you are screwed with another 20 minute wait.  Gearing up as a DPS will take time.  Lots and lots of time and just a bit of luck hoping you do not get grouped with jerks.

So my Druid, the Bear/Tree will have to query as a Tree and my DK which is blood DPS/Blood Tank will have to query as a DPS.  You might ask, why do I have two tanks if I don't want to tank.  Thing is, I do want to tank.  I just do not want to tank with the type of people I tend to run into when I use the LFD tool.  Learning how to tank is hard when no one gives you the time to learn.  Also, with them geared up, I can help my guildies when they need instant queries.  If I go with all guildies I do not mind tanking.  Heck, once I am raid ready I can tank raids no problem.  Raids are easier then heroics any day.  In a raid you are basically there to hold threat and get beat on.  Single target most of the time and with people you know and that know you.  No stress in raids as compared to running with the morons that use the LRD tool.

After I am done with my refer a friend stuff I might have to start gearing up my alts.  Of course that will come while I get my other 7 characters up to 80 as well.  One of each class.  Did I really want to do that?  Nope.  I am doing it so I can learn better what each class can do.  Once I know that better I will become a better hunter and that is my goal.  Remember what I said, I read about everything but reading and doing are two different things.  Reading about a priest I never though I would like it and I love it.

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