Monday, July 8, 2013

Monday Random Thoughts

- A four day weekend for me meant a little extra time to play.

- It also means I now have every class at 90.

- Took a lot longer than I would have expected but blizzard has been keeping me busy.

- Holiday time combined with summer time also means fielding raid teams is becoming a bit harder.

- Our 25 was really short this week, so we started late and had to pug a bunch of people.

- We only got down the first two bosses, but with pugs not listening well enough the third, which is usually the easiest boss, just would not go down.

- I think it was a nice chance to work as a recruitment tool.

- While we did not get any new players out of it, it was surely a good idea to see some new blood.

- As odd as it sounds, with the pugs we did grab that I did a pick and choose job with, we had better numbers over all DPS wise.

- But not downing the loot council shows you why there will always be issues with pugs.

- It is one of the, if not the, easiest boss in the raid.

- When people listen to me for switches at least it is.

- Pugs, at least from my experience, more often than not think they all know better than you.

- So instead of listening to my calls and following my instructions they all attacked what they thought would work best.

- Empowered spirits were eating people alive.

- "Because I never switch in my group."

- You are not in your group, you are in my group, when I say switch, switch.

- That is why pugs fail.

- It was a great group of people, all decent players, all with experience on the first few, but we could not even down three because everyone thinks they know better.

- People need to understand that accepting an invitation to a pug means you are agreeing to listen to the person in charge.

- When you just listen and do as you are told you will collect loot.

- Either way, I expect the summer time to be like this.

- So many people going on vacation, spending some time with family, friends, just relaxing.

- I had talked about expanding the 25 and think I will wait until after summer.

- I'd like to see the 25 doing 4 in one night before I really think of a second night.

- Still dragging people in with sub 480 item levels, but as long as they play well it really does not hurt us.

- I tanked one ToT run on my monk this weekend.

- First time ever, didn't do so bad.

- Damage was still pretty spiky however.

- I asked the healers how I did and they said that most of the time I was very easy to heal and it did not seem like I needed much healing at all.

- Yet other times I seemed to go from 100% to 10% in a second.

- I'll have to see if that is something I can smooth out with more practice or it is just par for the course.

- Ran another run for the first time ever on my mage.

- In almost 30 item levels less than my hunter it can pull within 30K of my hunters DPS.

- I can only image what it would do it in the same gear.

- And just to think I have zero raiding experience on my mage and am not nearly as skilled at it, and it could do that good.

- Goes to show you how over powered mages are.

- Snagged a 522 weapon now, so I can only see his numbers going higher.

- If only I could get a 522 weapon on my hunter.

- My hunters luck is horrible.

- And it does not help that I have yet to kill a hunter weapon boss in the real raid.

- All my hunter weapon boss kills I have been on my tank for.

- Just my luck right?

- And guess what?

- Yeap, you guessed it, the bow drops each time I am not there on my hunter.

- One day I will get a kill on my hunter and I can bet you it will not drop.

- Because the game hates me.

- Been trying to get the brawlers guild quest items and it is really hating on me hard.

- Can not get the one from the scenario bag on my hunter but got it on 3 other characters.

- Been farming every day for the farm one and never get it.

- Had to do the darkmoon faire on 11 level 90s to manage to snag one of those while someone else got it on the first bag they opened and everyone else in the guild got it from one of the 5 they got that first day.

- Been doing blingtron every day to try to get that one as well.

- No luck for me but when I mentioned I put a blingtron up two people from guild came over and both got the quest item from him.

- Somewhere I think there is a GM watching, laughing at me.

- So for that achievement I only need the farm one, blingtron one, and scenario one now.

- Well, and the bruce one, but that will come as soon as I get the others and then go beat bruce which is not exactly what anyone would call hard.

- So it is all RNG for me now.

- Which means it could very well take forever with my luck.

- I did actually get an extra runestone drop for the first time in god knows how long.

- So instead of it taking me at most 5 more weeks, now it is at most 4 more weeks.

- If the game shows some mercy on me I will have a great week.

- Nearly everyone I talk to has told me that they had one week were they got 4 or 5.

- I've never had one of those and one of those is all I would need.

- I will never do the LFR, at least that one, on my hunter as soon as I am done with it.

- But I will admit I had a quite excellent run this week on my hunter.

- The bosses went down with no real issue, most people in the group were over 80K, moved from crap, and did what they were supposed to do.

- Why is that considered a good group?

- At this point in the expansion all groups should be like that where at least 20 of the 25 have done it before and are capable of doing it well.

- Unlike some jerks in the LFR that will bitch at someone "how can you not know this it has been out months" I have a brain and know that not everyone has been doing it for months and this might be their first time there.

- That is the perfect example of the elitist attitude, the assumption that everyone should be on the same level of play as you.

- While I am somewhat like that, in that I believe everyone should at least have a basic understand of their class and be able to do the a minimum they are capable of doing, I also understand that there will always be people that do not know what they are doing not because they are "bad" but because they have never done it.

- Would I like everyone to watch a video first?  Yes.  Do I expect it?  No, I've learned better not to expect something that should be standard like that.

- I did the LFR on a few alts this weekend too and had mostly decent runs, only a few bad ones.

- One run saw this poor tank fall victim to that elitist attitude.

- He came in and said this is my first time tanking this so if there is anything I should know please let me know.

- A vote to kick popped up in what seemed like 2 seconds after his post hit raid chat.

- I did a quick inspection of him, thinking that if the vote to kick appeared that fast maybe someone noticed he was in the wrong gear or something before he said anything.

- He was in the correct spec, correct gear, most all decked out with the appropriate gems, enchants and everything reforged.

- He has 2 lower level pieces, as someone just gearing up would, that were not enchanted, and I can easily forgive that.

- I mostly would not waste an enchant on anything less than 502 now myself so that is fine.

- I hit no on the vote to kick.

- You do not, repeat, DO NOT kick someone that has not done the content before.

- Even more so when they are trying to learn and spoke up about it.

- But the vote to kick went through once again causing me to lose more faith in this horrible community we have in warcraft.

- And we waited nearly 40 minutes for another tank.

- So let me get this straight.  You kick a ready, willing and able tank, in the right gear, right spec, and of the appropriate item level for the content that was willing to learn and take advice for a 40 minute wait time?

- And that folks, is why there is a 40 minute wait time.

- And that is why I do not tank these things because quite honestly these people do not deserve me helping them.

- I was healing an LFR a while back when people started to get on this DK tank that had questionable trinkets, they even tried to kick him because of it.

- After they said something I said in raid, and I rarely if ever say anything in chat, that his trinkets are fine.  I am the one that is healing him and I am not having any problems with it.  Just let it go, let him down some bosses, and maybe he will get better trinkets for next time.

- The vote to kick popped up, it failed, the damage dealer that was on and on about it raged in chat and quit saying we would never be able to down the next boss without him.

- We did of course.

- Glad the raid listened to me and not some idiot.

- Sometimes, most of the times actually, the idiot wins.

- In many cases exactly like that one the tank would get kicked and then I would get kicked right after him because I stuck up for him.

- I have mentioned this before but I feel it is worth mentioning again.

- I only really talk when I am on one of my healers.

- Not sure why but I feel more powerful, if you will, when I am on a healer.

- Never once have I spoken up in a dungeon or raid when on a healer that the group did not back me up.

- Perhaps it is just the luck of the draw, but to me it seems healers have more power than any others in the game when it comes to talking.

- If a healer says kick a tank, and the healer was not previously being a dick, it is the only time I will really consider kicking a tank.

- As long as the healer can keep the tank up, even gear does not matter.

- I remember once back in wrath when there was a paladin in a dungeon after the tank left that said "I'd tank but I don't have a tank spec."

- I said, throw on righteous fury and keep aggro and leave the rest to me.

- I kept him healed the entire run and he never had any close calls.

- The term meat shield is really appropriate for random content.

- In many cases, not all, you only need someone that can take a hit and healers that are capable of healing it.

- I've tanked on my healer before.

- Easy to do on a disc priest really.

- I tanked on my mage yesterday because we had some really horrible tanks in one of the LFRs.

- If the tanks kept dying why did I say the tanks where horrible and not the healers?

- Because when the tanks died the healers kept me up, on a mage, while I tanked for nearly 50% of the bosses life.

- If they can keep me up that long on a cloth wearer I believe it is safe to say the tanks did not die to a healing issue.

- We downed the boss with me and a warlock basically tanking 80% of the fight.

- Speaking of tanking, I need to figure out how to gear up my paladin and warrior now that they are 90.

- My DK, druid and monk I tank in my DPS gear, so gearing them up is not as much of an issue.

- I also enjoy monk DPS even if I am not really all that great at it and DK DPS is not so hard and I do okay even gemmed and enchanted and reforged to tank.

- My druid is another story because I have no off spec for it.  Do not like balance, I can't get back into restro, and I do not feel like playing cat, there is just way to much involved in doing it correctly for me to do it on an alt character in an alt spec that I really will never care much about.  But at least it is my raid tank, so it gets some gear, just a lot slower.

- But what about my warrior and paladin, how will I gear them up?

- I have an average item level of 497.2 over the 11 level 90s on that server.

- Not really so bad considering that three of them hit 90 and just sat there and another 2 have not been played in a long time.

- I would like to see my average server item level in the 515 range by the time the next patch comes out.

- To do so I will need to get those tanks up.

- But I do not tank the LFR because of reasons that have been mentioned 101 times.

- Here is my list of demands, to maybe, just maybe, get me tanking the LFR.

- Number 1:  Greatly increased gear drop rate for tanks.  50% chance to drop an item and 75% chance to drop an item with a coin.

- Number 2:  Now with spec selection let me choose "Hunter" or "Discipline Priest" or whatever as my loot specialization and then give me drops at that same increased drop rate that are BoA so I can trade them to the character I am currently collecting loot for.

- Number 3:  Give me moderator status and the ability to mute players.  Not kick, mute.  Nothing more frustrating for a troll then being stuck in a group they can not troll because the tank muted them.  I want moderator status if you want me to tank.

- Number 4:  Make all fights only need one tank.

- Seriously that has to be my number 1 pet peeve in the LFR.  The other tank.

- They are impossible to talk to.  Maybe one in ten times you get a person you can work with, the other 9 times you get...

- Mr super hero that says he can solo tank all of this, and probably can, or...

- Mr thinks he is a super hero who says he can one tank it and can't even tank one trash mob and keep aggro, or...

- Someone that does not reply to you, or...

- Someone that does reply to you telling you that they know the fight better than you ever will so they do not need to talk to you even if all you ask was, do you want the boss first, or...

- Someone that fights you for aggro even when it is your turn to have the boss, or...

- Someone that won't taunt when it is their time to taunt, or...

- Just so much more.

- Nine times out of ten the other tank is a dick in one way or another.

- Make all LFR fights 1 tank fights.

- So yeah, that is my number one request that might get me tanking.

- But I admit being able to get gear for my mage while on my tank would really give me more reason to tank.

- Instant queue is always better isn't it?

- But do you think we would ever get to the point where we will be allowed to trade soulbound items to our own characters.

- I do not see that ever happening as long as there is still loot that drops from a roll system.

- I can already see a paladin rolling need on a cloth item because "my warlock needs it."

- But with a system like in the LFR were people are not rolling against each other I can see it happening.

- So they would either need to remove the roll for loot thing completely in randoms so soulbound can be traded or create a new category for tradeable items called something like soulbound plus and use that for LFR type drops.

- They can not just make everything BoA.

- Then you would only need to assemble one set of tank gear and switch it back and forth between your paladin and warrior.

- The best thing, in my opinion, would be added a new BoA type of halfbound that makes it soulbound on equip but it can only be trade to yourself.

- Now that could work, and it would be a great incentive to get me to tank.

- But I still am not sure I would.

- I just do not like the people.

- But gearing up time in on the horizon for my new plate 90s.

- If I choose to do it, not sure I will yet.

- Started a new monk on another server, did not play it much, but it is funny doing a second one now and knowing what abilities will come and waiting for them.

- Leveled a few 20s I had to the 40s range.

- Did some scenarios on my horde hunter just to prove my luck with hunters follows me as I still have no gear on that one even having done a fair deal of stuff.

- Logged into one of my characters on a full server at 3 in the morning and it made me want to cry.

- Three in the morning and the main city was packed more than my server had the high point in the day.

- There were pugs going on everywhere even at that time.

- Some where even saying thing like, quick 6 boss run.

- My server can't even do a quick one boss run.

- I wonder if virtual realms will turn my server into that server.

- Only time will tell.

- Have a great day.

28 comments:

  1. 497 average for 11 toons? Damn... I had 11 90s a while back but you've passed me in gear, I have 10 toons at 480+ (11th is mid-470s) but I don't think the average is quite that high. Time to get back to work!

    I normally only speak with authority (ie. disagreeing or making a point vs a general comment) in LFR when I'm on a healer or a geared dps (I don't tank LFR). Made an exception this weekend, though, first time through on my warrior, barely top 10 dps. Had a group wipe on Jin'Rokh (don't see that in LFR much anymore) due to a bunch of dps faceplanting during the first tstorm (healing issue, far as I could tell) so we eventually hit the soft enrage. Lost a couple, had a bunch of people giving wrong theories (bad tanks, not enough dps, etc), even had a healer (the top healer hps-wise) say he was going to switch to dps to help out. Sigh. I told everyone to stick to their spec and for dps and healers to stack for the tstorm and for the healers to pop their cooldowns at that point. Not surprisingly, the boss went down easily the next time and we one-shot the next two bosses without incident.

    The other time was during the 2nd wing, which I normally avoid... had an issue on Tortos trash where I ended up disagreeing with a healer on the cause of, I ended up basically having to lead that run since one tank was brand new to the instance and the other tank was a respecced dps who hadn't tanked it before (we had a second tank but they wouldn't get out of dps spec... long story, still surprised we weren't able to get that toon kicked). So I ended up setting up tank strats for fights I haven't tanked before. Aside from a wipe on Ji-Kun due to the nest group dying (they were separated for a quill phase, 2nd attempt they stuck together and we got the kill) it went pretty smoothly... and I wasn't on one of my geared toons.

    I find healers can get away with pretty much any sort of attitude in LFR... tanks can get away with anything but incompetence or elitism (elitism is slippery but I've seen more tanks called out &/or kicked for that than healers).

    I still think they could make gear tradeable within your own account by putting a cost on it... say, 500VP to unbind but it would bind to whatever toon you send it to, then it could be unbound for another 500VP. That would put a ceiling on how often you could do it.

    "Because I never switch in my group."

    /kick

    You need to earn the right to freelance in a group, unless the RL tells you to freelance going in, you follow the script so if it doesn't work, the RL can diagnose the actual issue vs going in with incorrect assumptions.

    I won't kick someone for gear, I'll only kick for spec (and even that's not 100% of the time, I don't mind a tank spec dpsing their first time in, I'd prefer an actual dps spec but I'd rather have a 30K dps than a new tank... no, I wouldn't kick a new tank who doesn't know the instance but I hate it when it happens, do the fight at least once before you try tanking it) or for significant performance issues (which can be a result of bad gear, but I'll at least give them a chance first).

    For your monk tank, you should try logging the fights... WoL is really useful for things like damage spikes - you can see if any of your abilities dropped off at just that point, whether the mechanic is just huge and needs you to use a CD for, etc. Plus, all tanks take big hits occasionally, it'd be boring if they didn't. :)

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    1. Three of those characters are still only MV LFR or lower level, so it means a few geared characters are really lifting those numbers. One is not even 450 yet.

      Tortos trash is hard because everyone is in DPS mode and no one interrupts. This locks the healers and wipes start. I've had times in the LFR were I spent 200 gold on repairs just because of those bats. Looking at the logs I was the only one interrupting.

      Sometimes people are just like a horse with their blinders and don't notice anything, it is amazing and I often wonder if they go around in real life like this too.

      I have taken groups in with much less DPS that switched where I told them to and when I told them to do so and we down it in one shot. This group had bigger numbers and nothing was dying because people were not listening to me.

      I always said I do not like to be the raid leader but the fact remains I know what I am talking about. Do what I tell you to do and you collect loot. Don't and you collect repair bills. This proved it.

      All my stuff is logged. Just need to know what to look for. ;)

      I think it might have a little to do with the gear issue. I am only 500 item level as is and do not have a massive amount of life to begin with. It is not like I am over gearing it on my monk, if anything I am of the appropriate item level for the content. I got spiky on council but I think that could be because of the influx of incoming damage from various sources. I am sure I can still get better with it.

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    2. Really, really wish they don't take our interrupt away in 5.4... but it looks like they're going to. /cry

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    3. Seems like they might be adding a glyph that turns scatter shot from a disorient to an interrupt.

      Not like it makes sense really. If they are going to do that just leave us with the interrupt and put silencing shot and scatter shot on the same CD.

      Once again, an easy fix that blizzard has to make hard.

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    4. Yeah... there was a blue post saying: "We like Silencing Shot as a Marksman perk overall, but we’re still discussing things. We may end up making a baseline Interrupting Shot that gets upgraded to Silencing Shot if you spec Marksman."

      So they're considering a baseline interrupt w/o a silence; hopefully, that happens instead of the glyph.

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    5. Personally I do not give a flying F about the silencing part of it. I just want an interrupt. lol

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    6. Based on the latest PTR notes that's exactly what they did, baseline interrupt that gets upgraded to SiS for MM. That's a great solution to the lost talent...

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    7. That is an excellent solution.

      Nice to see sometimes we win one as a hunter.

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    1. If you are playing the way you enjoy playing and getting the most out of it your item level means nothing. Sure it would make some things easier but it is not required if you do not have the intention of raiding, so keep playing the way you play and enjoy it. In the end that is what we all play for isn't it?

      I can give you a cat run down but cat is just too much work for me. lol So much to watch, buffs on you, debuffs on the mob, combo points, blah. I just go bear and rip crap to pieces.

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    3. I can't really say for sure as I have not leveled a new druid this expansion so I do not know when you get certain talents.

      However, with that said, I will give you the basic idea of what to aim for using.

      For damage, I have (2) farie fire, (3) mangle, (4) lacerate, (5) thrash and (6) swipe. (shift 3) maul.

      Always put up FF, mangle on cooldown for rage, lacerate to 3 stacks, but keep using it even when at three and thrash. You should rarely if ever have the time or need for swipe while leveling. When you start getting more secure in the defensive end you can grab more and mix swipe in but with only a few targets it is not worth it and you should always have something else off cooldown. Only use maul if you do not need the rage for defensive reasons or when you get the maul proc which you should use it against a melee attacker as it reduces their next attack my 50%.

      For survival, use barksin liberally. It is a short cooldown, use it.

      Use rage on frenzied regeneration if facing magic casters mostly, use it on savage defense if facing melee mobs. If you are capable use both as rage allows.

      Cooldowns. Berserk on multiple targets. Survival instincts when you know big damage is coming. Might of ursoc if you get low and follow that up with frenzied regen to get back up.

      Incarnation has several uses. If you are not in danger of dying and have a huge pack spam maul (glyphed) and thrash like a mad man, er, bear. If you are in need of some serious cooldowns spam mangle for what will be infinite rage for a while and use it on savage defense and frenzied regen.

      With that said, use what is available at your level and adapt as you get more skills.

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    5. If you have any more questions feel free to ask.

      Trying to teach tank leveling is a little harder as there is more a feel to it than a right or wrong.

      The idea is to get familiar with the abilities and work from there.

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  3. I used to play a hunter. One of the reasons I don't anymore was the always having to get another bigger weapon and how big of an impact it has on your damage. Sure a new weapon is nice as a mage but its not make or break.

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    1. It is really a lot for a hunter. Just like for melee. Everything is based off weapon damage.

      It is one of the reasons I have always hated that there were no valor weapons. Weapons are sometimes the hardest thing to get and valor is supposed to be a support system for bad luck, it should always have weapons, at least for the classes that everything depends on it.

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  4. - Also did a bit of leveling on my mage. Not Grumpy style leveling but...

    I leveled her from 61 to 68 doing nothing but pet battles. Although, I think it'll be several months before I do a pet battle again... Still don't have any pets at 25... couple of 23s and some 22s. Got through the Pet Trainers except for the last one in Outland.

    - As a I mentioned before, I got my 608 cloak on Tuesday and I got pulled in as an extra to do ToT. Only got up through Council, but I won Bad Juju off an extra roll. So iLvL is 530 now... Oddly enough, I am now the 4th best geared hunter on the realm according to WoW Progress... Yet I'm only 3/12 with a total of 6 normal boss kills (3, 2, 1)... It's rather sad really.

    - Our guild is definitely suffering from summer vacations as well. They are having a hard time fielding the 10man team; hence why I ran with them a couple times last week.

    - 522 weapon for your mage, huh... would love to see a 522 for my hunter but haven't actually killed anything that drops weapons either so I'm 0 for 0 as well. :)

    - Haven't looked into these Brawlers items you mentioned. Another thing for the list I guess.

    - Gratz on the extra runestone. I never got 4 or 5 in a week, but I usually got 2 or 3 once they started dropping for me. Guildies asked me how long it took so I dug through my comments on your blog to find out. :) Took 7 weeks for me.

    - I am done with LFR now. No reason whatsoever to go in there. No rep, no gear, no legendary drops, nothing of value to gain from there, don't even need the valor since I'm fully upgraded (not a good source of valor anyways).

    - Can definitely understand the first timers in LFR. Last couple times I did Primordius I explained the oozes to people after the fight. They said they kept killing oozes but never transformed. So explained what they needed to do for next time. They were thankful for the advice. They weren't bad people; they just didn't know what to do.

    - You're talk about people kicking the new players though is a major reason why I've kind of set aside the DK. His iLvl is 489 with mostly tank gear that is of course properly gemmed and enchanted, so he's obviously qualified to do any of the LFRs. However, I have no desire to try to learn how to tank LFR on him. Tanking dungeons is not a good test because he's over-geared (He barely needs a healer for dungeons; if he really even does at all...), so I'll help on world bosses but that's about all I do with him.

    - Halfbound. I like it.

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    1. That last one is outlands has to be one of the hardest in my opinion. While leveling pets I got destroyed there. Now with an assortment of 100+ 25s I can pick and choose and the fight is easy but if you do not have the right match up, the near perfect one, even with all 25s that one will be hard.

      Pet battles do offer a lot of experience. A friend of mine is leveling almost completely that way.

      At least you have not killed anything with it on another character and had to watch it drop. I bear cries each time I see a bow drop. Just wish I could be on my hunter once. lol

      They come from all over the place. Arch, fishing, pet battle, farm, scenarios, etc. Lots to collect. And an achievement to boot, two really. One to collect them all and one to beat them all.

      See, that is the key, sometimes it is not people being bad players, they just did not know. It doesn't hurt us to teach once in a while. I wish more people would instead of just chalking them up as bad players. If you tell them what to do and they still don't, then call them bad.

      I would never want to talk an LFR alone. At least not until I could solo tank it.

      I've noticed even if you are new if you open with "First time on this char but I have done it on a few others" they might be a bit more receptive. Usually are. But saying you are new completely, I see that result in a kick far too often.

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  5. Heh, that reminds me of my ex a bit. Main was MM hunter and alt was resto shaman. Didn't like getting stuff and achis on shaman but was an amazing healer so when we were stuck on something we'd call on Shamlin (original name, I know...). Every time we'd down a boss on shaman and not on hunter, would go all pouty and sad.
    Which makes me wonder - why do people make and gear alts at main-level if they don't really want to do it. Ok, to help out. But... I didn't like seeing Shamlin sad.

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    1. If I did not tank, we do not run.

      Simple as that.

      My tank is still a fair deal less geared than my hunter even if it gets more actual raid time. But I do not run anything with it except the real raid. Do not valor cap it, do not go out of my way with it. So it is clearly an alt, even more so when you can see what I have done with my main with less raid time gear wise.

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  6. As for speaking up in random group content... I've noticed I can instant vote kick anyone. Even through the first 15 minutes. I suppose it's because I've never been kicked myself or because I vote kicked people 2, maybe 3 times since the system's been up. That's exactly how I look at speaking up. I don't, not usually. But when I do, I feel like my words have weight. I play mainly tank, but I do have some healers and dpses. I don't treat them any different, as long as I do my job right, I feel I have the right to speak up.

    If a tank goes down and healers keep up a clothie, that doesn't rule out bad healing. I've had a situation in one of our 25m when they left me without heals 15 seconds under heavy hits, I hit everything I had and none of the 5 healers even bothered to look at me. Once I was down they focused on the offtank and pulled all they had. Healers can be really distracted and not pay attention in 25m.

    As for LFR tanks... Some druid offtank kept taunting on Iron Qon. I'll let taunts np, for vengeance build-up, but I'm a paladin... you let the boss stay on me. Not because I'm some solo hero, but because it's dps and heals waste not to. Personally, I find it annoying when someone doesn't let a paladin do his job.

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    1. Did you tell the other LFR tank you wanted to solo tank it? I was there for runestones last week and had a taunt war with a warrior. Now I'm a paladin so if anyone should have been solo tanking Ion Qon it should have been me. However we must have been both hitting taunt on cd. It was incredibly frustrating. I'd queued to tank, I know what to do but he would not let me have the boss.

      If he'd told me he'd wanted to solo tank I would have slacked off and not worried. I blew up at him afterwards and said just that and he just laughed. I guess I should have been grateful to actually get a co-tank that knew what the taunt button is, and also knew the encounter. Still I don't like feeling like a spare wheel. I want to do my job and I tried to and got nowhere. If only he'd said I would not have got quite so frustrated and furious.

      Just a thought :)

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    2. Same here. I rarely kick and was only kicked once, the first day of cataclysm when I hit 85 and went into a heroic and was kicked because, get this, I had never done it before.

      That was the only time I was ever kicked. Because I had not done a dungeon before. Less than 24 hours after the game was released when maybe .1% of the player base had even found their way to 85 yet. Some people are just amazingly retarded.

      True on the healers. I've noticed that too where they get the DPS mentality of meters, meters, meters, and just start spamming AoE to pad the meters and forget the tank. I have not seen it as much this expansion but in the DS LFR it happened all the times. I used to do tank healing only when I went in there because it seemed like no one wanted to heal the tanks because it would effect their HPS. While I love HPS for seeing potential I hate that healers think of it like a DPS meters, whoever is highest wins.

      That is one case where I would say you can not blame him for taunting. While the fight can be one tanked people are taught to switch. Perhaps he just never tanked with someone that could one tank it. But that is where I say talking helps. You could just tell him you were going to solo tank it and then he would not taunt. Heck, I would just put you on follow and go out to get some coffee. ;)

      @Taitrina

      I think warriors love that one because it is one of the few ones that even lesser geared warriors can easily solo tank. I've seen a lot of warrior tanks solo tank that one in there. Even had one that was in all heroic gear, 13/13, and he said that he solo tanks the entire thing. Yes, all 12 boss, on normal at least. And here I was thinking that only paladins could manage that. lol

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  7. Ok bind to account gear would only be cool if that applied to gear only you could loot, or only if everyone else passed or something. Otherwise you would get people needing on absolutely everything and that would suck. People don't even obey the conventions for MS/OS so let's not open that up any wider.

    You could not share a complete gear set between warriors and paladins. One or two pieces possibly that you had to take on the paladin as there were no alternatives. Really you'd have more in common between pally dps and tank, rather than pally tank and pally warrior. Anything that doesn't have crit on it is ok for pally tanks and crit is ret pally's weakest stat. Haste/Mastery is the best secondary stat combo to get on a piece of gear.

    For gearing the rare mantid archy sword is a nice starting point. Shado Pan Assault sell a nice neck and cloak. When you get to scenarios beg the loot gods for 'of the faultline' gear though really for gearing up take whatever you can get just to get into the higher content, no point wasting your time on outdated gear. I'm sure you have the gearing method down to a science now.

    If your gear is dodgy and you want to queue as ret with loot specialisation half the time it's worth keeping as ret. only change it for bosses where all the ret gear has crit on it or it's a weapon/shield boss. Very little of my gear has dodge or parry on. Haste is king and long may it be so. That's why warriors and pally's can't share gear as haste does nothing for warriors.

    Oh btw I thought of you yesterday. I was playing Hawkeye who's an archer in Marvel Heroes. I was soloing something that was too high level by kiting I guess. I was rolling out of the way, stunning them etc. this made me think of the best hunter I know and I wondered whether he'd tried Hawkeye. So have you? His default costume sucks, I had to change it and I actually like playing him better now. Still he's the most hunter like of MH classes.

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    1. Yeap. I could see that happening. I need this for my priest, I need this for my shaman, etc. If it is the LFR loot system it could work. If it is the dungeon loot system it would not.

      I would need to go back and forth and remember which ones are the shield and weapon bosses. Not sure I am going to worry about gearing it up however. Not really interested in another character with 101 buttons. I am sick and tired of that game play from my hunter having that. So much so I have now started using blink strikes and thrill of the hunt even if they are not the top DPS options, but to remove too buttons.

      Nope, I do not have hawkeye yet, but I got ms marvel and she is awesome. Melee and ranged mix. And she feels pretty powerful and I love how I can fly over entire zones and skip stuff if I want to.

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  8. The "Other Tank" Phenomenon is why I only queue with tanks I know... usually my hubby.

    As for speaking up, I'll speak up no matter what role I am. I only truly care about my main and I run her with guildies so...

    We had an LFR issue this week requiring some kicks... Got into our weekly LFR last Wednesday - 4th ToT and on phase 3 of Iron Qon he kept throwing the spear on the melee... so on top of the boss. We kept trying to move but he doesn't move when he's casting Dead Zone [I was literally standing across the room getting yelled at while the boss was casting Dead Zone... I moved as soon as I saw where the spear was] which he did shortly after the spear every time... so we had a group from Coilfang throwing a hissy of abusive language at us. We ended up kicking two of them after the fight when they went on and on about us being the worst tanks ever [hey, I don't need the abuse, especially when half the raid queued with us.

    My point there being that why would I sign up for that situation to potentially happen when I'm by myself?

    I mean I know I have in t14 on tanking alts... but that's a whole different world. And you still run into:

    PVP tank

    Uber geared tank who won't do jack

    Uber geared tank who wants to do everything

    Tank in greens who can't do jack but wants to

    Tanks with taunt in their rotation

    Tanks who want to go full out and pull the boss back off you then QQ that you suck when you have no vengeance

    Tanks that won't taunt, no matter what

    It's bad enough there where I can usually power through whatever, or hey if they want to taunt it and not let me have it, I can sure play with their health pool.

    But why bother? DPSing and Healing is much easier socially [not talking about the roles themselves but social aspect only]. Rarely do people care how much dps you do if stuff is dying or how high your hps is if the raid isn't dying.

    As a tank if you don't do things as people EXPECT, even if your method is truly better, you run into issues.

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    1. That is why I do not tank them either. The other tank. It is horrible most times.

      Coilfang, just hearing that makes me laugh. The first three people I ever put on ignore were from coilfang back in wrath shortly after the addition of LFD. So to explain how huge that is for me, in my entire time playing the game only 5 people have ever made my ignore list. And I play a lot. So they were really that bad.

      Tanks are always put in the direct line of sight for everything and that is because they are front and center. I think it is a huge reason why there are so few tanks. It is surely why I do not tank and I have 5 level 90 tanks geared to do so. It is just not worth.

      I do think that if everything only needed one tank it would work a little better. At least you would lose a fair deal of the tank issues by never having to deal with the "other tank".

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