One More Level.

I am sitting at level 49 now on my Warrior waiting for level 50 so I can get the ability to use Charge in Defensive Stance.  I can't rightfully say as I do not know about others and it is not end game yet at only level 49 but that is the make or break of Warrior tanking in my opinion.  I've been waiting for the time where I no longer need to stance dance my life away. 

I've got an end game Druid and DK both with tank specs.  I have not used my DK much at all being it is my bank character really but I have used my Druid more then enough to know the ins and outs of it more then in just a passing.  With that in mind it makes me think about all the tanks out there and what I think of them.

I have a level 40 Paladin (yes, knocked out up to 40 this weekend) that I plan to duel spec once I hit 80 into either Protection or Holy.  That still remains to be seen.  I want to keep it's Retribution spec because that character is going to be a pure gatherer for me, mining and skinning but I can see how Paladin tanking can be fun.

Paladins have it easy with only needing to do what they need to do with mana and that can reasonably be nearly unlimited.  When specced correctly with a knowledgeable healer you will be regaining mana.  You have your judgment as well as so many other mana regeneration abilities of other classes, you can pot, you can drink between fights, so basically you have a nearly endless supply of mana and only have to worry about your global cool down holding you back.  Or really bad DPS which could turn a 2 minute fight into a 20 minute one that will surely drain you of your mana.  With a choice of resources, this is the one I would want to tank with.  More control for me and when it comes to being a tank it is all about control.

Death Knight tanking is nearly as good with the rune system.  The runes seem to recharge very fast but the cool down on some of the skills you need seem a bit long for tanking needs and developing high threat on many target, while extremely easy, takes a small bit of time to develop.  With death and decay needing one of each rune and its long cool down you really need to plan two moves in advance to be effective, which with practice should not be much of a problem.  I have not really done it enough to be good to that extent but on paper it looks really nice when it works.

Druids are my favorite because of something that has nothing to do with tanking what so ever.  I love the bear dance and there is nothing I love more then dancing on the dead bodies of the bosses as I beat them.  Is that really wrong to love bear tanking because I like the dance?  My biggest gripe about bear tanking has been the same since I started.  The DPS that is behind me.  I need to do something to get some aggro.  I can't do anything until I get hit a few times and get some rage built up.  DPS does not like the wait that long and go after the mobs the moment I make contact with them.  Unlike my bear's tanking counterparts that can D&D, Consecration, or Tunder Clap to get some instant aggro to start working with the bear can do nothing but look at the mobs going all over the place.  Smart DPS makes the job a ton easier. 

To bad that there are so many stupid players and being there are more DPS then there are tanks and healers you see more stupid DPS around.  It is a numbers issue, DPS are not worse then tanks or healers, it is just you notice them more.  In a 5 man there will be one tank, one healer and three DPS.  So if I am the tank I never see stupid tanks, only my own stupidity.  With only one healer there is only one chance to grab an idiot out of the masses but there are three DPS in a group which means three chances to grab a total moron and being more then 50% of the people that play the game can not even walk and chew gum at the same time the odds are against you.  You will, without doubt, always have at least one retarded DPS in every 5 man you enter.  Which is why I no longer run 5 mans on my druid and it is stuck in ToC level gear for eternity.

Now Warriors, and my soon to be 50 Warrior, they are something like bears, in human form at least.  They both have a charge, they both have a 360 degree AoE threat grab that costs rage.  The difference is that with the Warrior their charge generates rage and the bears charge costs rage to use.  That makes the Warriors charge 100 times better.  Both the bear and the warrior have a way to generate quick rage.  The bears makes their armor go down some and the warriors sacrifices some health.  Again, warriors get the better here, the warrior has a glyph that keeps them from losing the life.  The bears are still stuck losing the armor.

While the Warrior has charge for a while you can not use it in defensive stance until you put 40 skill points into the protection spec and then get the Warbringer skill.  Once you get that you can use charge in defensive and you no longer need to stance dance and you no longer have to worry about taking a shot before you switch or the idea of losing some of the rage that the charge generated. To me, that is what completes the warrior.

My take on tanking is most likely not right at all.  I have not tanked much and I only know from the world of LK where everything is an AoE fest and DPS go out balls to the wall the second a battle begins so I am in no way an expert of any sorts.  I am only learning from what I see around me and, based on that, being able to grab AoE threat is the most important part of tanking.  On the grand scale of things charge makes a big difference for a warrior for that very reason.  Also being able to use charge in combat will help a ton too.  Have a runner, charge him.  Will stun him long enough to kill him most likely and will at least stop him from running.  Need some range.  Side step and charge, got some rage now.  There are so many uses for charge that I have noticed being I've been playing the stance dance game for a while now.  I think when it comes to it I will really enjoy tanking as a warrior because of that ability only.  For many classes there are signature moves or what people will call a make or break moves.  For me it seems like charge is the make or break for warrior tanking.  At least for now.  I have a long way to go before I get any of the other skills.

A Whole Bunch of Nothing.

A friend of mine, the tank I first ran with on a regular basis, is letting his subscription expire next month.  He is not really quitting the game but he is just sick of playing the same things over and over again.  He seems to have lost interest.  He most likely will come back when Cataclysm comes out he said, but you never know. 

My question is this, why let an account expire when it is so cheap to keep it?  His expires toward the end of September and Cataclysm is believed (as it seems at the moment) that it will be out near the end of November.  Personally I think it will be out near the end of October, have thought that for a long time now.  November is only 60 days from September, that is one game card, that is 30 bucks.  Just 30 bucks.

I can see how you can take some time off from playing.  I basically did that this weekend.  I didn't accomplish anything at all.  I also spend less time on this weekend when I had the free time.  I usually spent most of the free time playing, that is what free time is for.  Instead I watched some TV to pass the time.  Admittedly both are complete and total wastes of time but it is about what you enjoy doing.  I just was not in a mood for WoW and it seems my friend is not as well and that is why he is letting his account expire.

I can't see doing that unless I had the intention to quit completely and not come back.  Otherwise I would pay the 30 bucks to keep it running for those 60 days.  Just in case I decide to come back and play.  I really don't have anything else to do with my free time anyway.  So it helps me pass the time.

What exactly would you do if you got bored with a game and you knew a new expansion was coming out?  The old timers know because they have done it before but I am new.  Never been around at this point where an expansion is so close.  I keep trying to find things to keep me busy but it seems like there are less and less people doing anything so I can do things with them.  Most of the things I need would require more then just me.  I'm not exactly prepared to solo The Black Temple nor would I even try.

Everyone and their mother is running around with Kingslayer titles and I still do not have one.  If anything, that would be my reason for taking some time off.  My server is bad, very bad, and yet it still seems that I see Kingslayer around more then I do Jenkins.  I think that is the reason my friend is planning on taking time off.  The constant failure over and over can drain a person.  It has completely and totally killed me and my desire to play most of the time.  I stick with it because someone has to lead the raids and I feel it is my responsibility to do so. 

The problem is we are always helping people gear up just so they can go some place else.  It has happened over and over so often and now that it is the end of the expansion the only people left are people that either need gear or are so horrible that they could not get it even if they were carried.  So what does that say about me? That most likely explains why he is leaving. 

It sure explains why I am considering working so hard on my Priest (which did the first 3 bosses of ICC this weekend with only a 3600 gear score) and not really caring about my hunter any more.  Not saying my Hunter is not my main, it still is and will remain my main but the problem is I am not getting anywhere with it.  Range DPS is a dime a dozen and even if most people that know me consider me one of the top 5 Hunters on my server and I've been offered to run with some teams that do Kingslayer runs every week in only 1 night my Hunter is tied to my guild.  It is about honor and that is where he belongs so that is where he stays. 

So I am Working on my Priest as healers always seem to be in great need for raids.  Also my Priest is Disc and a Disc Priest is almost required for 25 man and even more so in hard modes for 25 man.  So if I put as much effort into my Priest as I did into my Hunter I will get Kingslayer with my Priest.  Not exactly what I wanted and mildly disheartening but at this late stage in the game before the coming expansion that seems to be the only option I have.

I have not been working on it as much as I should.  I have still not even fixed up my tool bar to be a completely healing set up yet being I am still questing and doing dailies whenever I do play it and I need the offensive spells available.  I think I might work on that today some.  It just bugs me a little that I needed to go out of my way to make another character that I should have been able to get on my main with no problem.

Maybe I can see why he is quitting for a while.  I just do not understand why you let your account lapse for only 60 days in the process.  I guess for as much as I do understand in the game there is a lot I don't when it comes to people in the game.

Being gear score is all these people care about I am keeping track of my Priest's gear score so I can know when it is good enough to start pugging myself into 25s.  I am still a long way away being I have not been doing my dungeons like I should have but I am up to 4200 gear score now.  If I at least did the daily dungeon I could get that up to 4800 in a week and get into some 25 PuGs because as I said, healers are always in need and a Disc Priest is almost a requirement.  Maybe I will have better roles with my Priest then I do with my Hunter and then I can get a sweet gear score in no time.

Reputations and Mounts

I finally got Honor Hold to exalted last night which gave me 30 Exalted Reputations and it kicked off my achievement ambitions again making me want to get back to doing a few.  Maybe I can take some time on my main again instead of spending all my non raiding time on alts for a bit.

I've been looking into some other reputations that I can get easily to try and work my way to 40.  I need a ton of the BC ones still, that will get me to 35 easily when I finish them.  I have the 4 goblin ones to do still and they are just grinding kills so that is more of a time effort then anything else. 

I also want to go for the 2 switch factions.  The Aldor/Scryer and the Oracle/Frenzyheart ones.  I have Oracles already so getting Frenzyheart will not be much of an issue.  Just did to do that one kill again and choose the other one and just do the dailies.  Time is all it will take, it will not be much trouble.

I am working on Aldor now and only need about 6K more.  I should get they just from drops while doing the other BC ones.  In that same time I am saving up Scryer ones which will make getting the Scryers up once I go for the switch no problem at all.  Not to mention all the ones I already saved up leveling 3 other characters through BC and 2 more characters that are presently there leveling.  All the others have never chosen a side so all their goods can go to my main.  The one thing I will have to make note of are the Dampscale Basilisk Eyes that I am going to need to switch from Aldor to Scryer.  I am going to need 200 of them and only have about 12 so far.  So I will need to grind them or keep an eye on the auction house for them.

Speaking of the auction house I will have to keep an eye out for things like Dark Iron Ore, Core Leather, Fiery Core, Lave Core, and Blood of the Mountain for Thorium Brotherhood reputation.  With all the ones I just mentioned it should take me to 40 no problem.  At 30 now, the goblin towns will make it 34, the two BCs will make it 36, the one LK will make it 37, the Thorium Brotherhood will make it 38 and then any of the other BC ones I need, Lower City, Keepers of Time, Scale of the Sands, Ashtongue Deathsworn or The Violet Eye will finish it off.  That makes 40 without doing any of the major grind ones.  Lower City and Keepers of time seem to be the easiest ones of those and will most likely be the ones I go for first.

Another one of the achievements I am getting close on that is a bit of work like the reputation one is the mount one.   I got myself up to 93 mounts last night on my way to trying to get to Mountain O' Mounts.  I still need 2 of the PvP ones which will be easy enough to get.  A days worth of grinding if I really wanted to and I can get 100K honor needed to buy the last 2.  There are also 6 more I still need from the Argent Tournament which cost 100 seals each.  I am sitting at only 41 seals.  Those are one of those ones that I will need to do the dailies every day to get to it and I have not done them in 3 months.  It only takes 15 minutes. I guess I can force myself to do it if I really want the achievement. 

I also want to get the Baron one but that is really about luck.  There is the Ashes one and the MT one as well, but they are luck too and I can not solo either of them.  At least I do not think I can, never tried to be honest but it does not seem like I could.  There is the one in Kara and two in ZG as well I can go for but again they are luck.  Both of those I can solo and know I can being I have done it before.

So with effort or luck or some of both getting the 100 mount one will not be an issue either.  Not to mention there are still a few expensive ones I could bring myself to buy that I have not bought yet.  That is always an option.

Then there is one thing that would help in both the Reputation and Mount department that I have always kept away from because of not only time involvement but a horrible drop rate.  The Wintersaber Trainers would not only get me an exalted reputation but it would get me a wicked cool mount.  +1 for each at the same time.  I always love doing things that have multi purposes.  However, looking back at it, I can get both achievements without ever touching them.  That won't stop me in the end.  I think I really want that mount so I will have to go for it either way.

In retrospect I can probably get both of those achievements finished this weekend if I put a ton of effort into it (and gold to get the expensive mounts).  Will I however?  Lately I have been liking leveling my alts on weekends.  I will have to consider it however now that I see how easy this can be having written it out.  It always seemed like both where so far away for me but once you see it written down it seems so much easier.  I might start on it this weekend and try to put a dent into it.

BTW:  Just to mention.  With Blizzard having problems last night and no one being able to log in we had to cancel last nights raid.  Talk about backfiring.  We are not raiding on Tuesday now to avoid this crap so Blizzard decided to ruin out Thursday raid instead.  Sometimes I think someone has it out for me.  You know what they say about the best made plans right?

I hate being a Frog

Had some fun learning how to tank with my new warrior.  A few people from my guild all had characters in their 40s so we decided to do some dungeon leveling with a group of all of us, me on my Prot Warrior.  So far, from the little bit I've experienced I enjoy tanking on my Warrior more then I do my bear for one reason.  It costs rage to charge as a bear, it generates rage when you charge as a warrior.  To anyone that might have never tanked that is a huge difference and totally changes how things are handled.

Sure, at level 44 I still have to stance dance as my warrior because I can not use charge in defensive stance yet but that is not much of an issue.  I made a macro for it to make my life easier.  The charge really helps in many ways.  First and foremost it gets me to the packs before the DPS can start going medieval on their asses. 

As my bear I would have to enrage to charge in and then wait to get hit.  This brings two problems.  One, I used my rage to get into there so now I have to wait before I can drop a swipe to get some aggro going as I now have no rage.  The other is that the enrage is now on cooldown so if I need rage in a rush I do not have my quick access to rage button to use.  So often I would run in and use the enrage as an oh shit button should one of the DPS open up AoE before I get there.  That happens all the time.  Not once in a while but all the time, nearly every pull DPS will be pew pewing away before I even made contact with the mobs.  It is beyond annoying.  The Warrior does not have this issue.  I charge, it generates rage so I can thunder clap and then I move about my way of tagging them all with a rend or sunder or whatever when I get some more rage.  If only a bear had the same option I would love it.

Doing ZF was fun.  Not only was it exciting to tank the stairs at level for the first time ever but the fact no one died on it was even more exciting.  I was so afraid of that really.  We did well over all but there were many scary moments.  A few times a wayward DPS would step to far back and bring some added attention, but I picked it up.  Heck, I think I actually started to get a little good at noticing when someone was going to bring adds.  I was expecting it which made it easier to pick up.  If I had a good aggro lead on the packs we were working on I would just go auto attack and let my rage build so I had it ready to pick them up if need be.  Not sure if that is how I am supposed to do it, but it worked for me. 

I even got into looking at all angles more often so I can see where pats are coming from.  I would even preemptively pick them up before they decided to take notice to what was going on and maybe go for someone else besides me.  We only wiped once when we ended up with like 12 or so mobs on us and I kept getting turned into a frog.

I hate being a frog.  I picked up the target I was going for and 5 visitors came instantly so I grabbed them as well and thunder clapped to get their attention.  Then, bam, I'm a frog and the mobs are going all over the place again.  As soon as I get out of my frog form I go around and collect them all up with all the new friends they brought to the battle from running all over the place.  I would thunder clap, tab sunder as many as I could, and then bam, I am a frog.  They all go haywire and everyone is scrambling all over the place again.  Once I get out again I continue the process, gather them all back up, get aggro on all of them again and it starts to look like a nice clean AoE burn when I become a frog again.

The entire battle was like that.  Grab aggro, become a frog, grab aggro again, become a frog.  Over and over until we all died.  I spent most of that battle as a frog.  I really hate being a frog.  You know as a DPS, which is what I really am at heart, if I get turned into a frog I just sit back and light a smoke and wait for it to wear off.  No big deal.  As a tank, getting turned into a frog gets everyone killed sometimes and even when I am in frog form I am spamming my thunderclap button so the second I come out and I try and grab some attention.  I am in panic mode.  Everyone is dying and it is all my fault.  Okay, I know it is not my fault, but that is sure as hell what it feels like.  Even with all those mobs we would have survived I am sure, if only I were not a frog.  Heck, if I were not a frog for even 15 seconds we could have handled it.  I was never out of frog form for more then 2 global cooldowns.  Which means I never had long to get stuff done.  While it was not my fault it sure feels like it.  Sometimes tanking is just not fun, like when you are a frog.  Frog tanking sucks.

New Raiding Schedule

Making a raiding schedule is like making food.  If you put too much of one in or not enough of the other it will not come out right.  The recipe needs to be followed exactly, or damn close, or else it will not taste like it was expected to.  Raids are somewhat the same in a sense.

So often I see problems in guilds when a raid gets canceled and things blow up and people get upset or when you run without people that are normally some of the best people that make sure they are always there when it is time to run.  Usually you can handle the situation yourself or pass it on to someone else if you are the raid leader.  If you can't make it you tell someone to cover for you but what happens when the server can't make it?

That is what I am getting at.  Tuesday maintenance tends to bring about problems that are not normal, problems that can not be easily handled.  If maintenance gets extended sometimes you do not run at all and that upsets people.  Not like there is much you can do about that as a raid leader.  If you raid is set to start at 7 and the server is not up until 8 then you cancel the raid.  It is rather simple.  Sad part is that seems to upset a lot of people.  I've seen people leave guilds because a run was canceled do to extended maintenance.

Then you have the perennial perfect player.  Good attitude, good attendance, always prepared, knows the fights before you get to them, you know who I am talking about.  The perfect raider, the one where if you had a whole crew of them then you could clear anything the day it comes out.  You also know those people are few and far between.  Sometimes even those people get frustrated when the server is down.  They do not sit there trying to log in every five minutes.  They do something else. Go to the bar, watch TV or even god forbid spend some time with the family.   If the server comes up and you decide to run anyway even if it was late and that person shows up after you filled all the spots you have a very angry person on your hands.

So many problems come from Blizzard being extremely undependable when it comes to getting their servers back up in a timely manner.  That is why this time around my guild is no longer even attempting Tuesday runs.  Nope, none at all are put on the schedule.  I might add something for "if you want to" type of thing but not the end game raids.  Not the progression raids.  Not anything of importance.  To many bad things can happen that breed bad blood to make running on a Tuesday even an option.

I wonder if other guilds have come to this conclusion as well? While I like to run on Tuesday I hate to see it canceled or delayed.  Not to mention all those follow up runs that got canceled because we did not run the Tuesday one.  This way we will totally avoid all those problems.  I hope.

It Is Not The Gear

Last night we played a wipe fest on the Professor and of course people where getting frustrated.  One person started to say "We need better gear for this" and was even whispering me over and over about doing runs to get more gear for people and about choosing a group just to get things done so we do not have to wipe over and over again.

He is someone I know well and is a very good player but I must disagree with him and I let him now that much.  He was saying that a gear score of at least 5800 was needed for the Professor.  I do not know what universe he came from but that is outright crazy.  This is not 25 man, this is not the heroic version.  You do not need gear that is HIGHER then the content you are doing to do it.  He said that the gear would help the fight be more forgiving of mistakes.  I do agree with that, to an extent.

First let me address the gear issue from my point of view.

People where doing ICC and clearing him before they had a gear score of 5800, heck, back then no one had over 5500 being it was brand new content.
People where doing ICC and clearing him before they had the 30% buff, some did it when it was 5%, some 10%, some 15, 20, 25 and now 30%... at all levels of gear.
People are doing him with a group of people in all 3300 or less gear score.  Check out the under geared project from the Greedy Goblin.

With all that said... I do not give a flying fuck what you say.  Gear is not going to help.  It is not needed, there is your proof.

So he went to the skill aspect and said that the people that where there were not as skilled as others so they needed the gear to help them through their mistakes.  Okay, I will give him that.  Gear does help people in some cases.  A healer with slow reaction time benefits from someone being able to take more damage and them in turn throwing larger heals.  That someone is helped too being he knows he can take more damage.  Gear helps DPS as well.  Stupid DPS that can not figure out how to strafe out of the fire can take more damage and be healed through it.  It also helps with them in the DPS department.  They can do 5K now when they really should be doing 9K.  However being 5K is all that is needed to down said boss they are all happy they can do enough whereas someone with some skill would be doing 5K with their eyes closed and using only 1/2 their abilities.

Gear does help forgive some mistakes.  With gear you do not have to run out of the slime piles as quickly.  With gear you can do more damage making the fight quicker so there are less chances for error.  However no amount of gear is going to cover for the fact that people are not switching targets when they are supposed to.  They are not collapsing when they are supposed to.  They are not doing the little things that we like to call mechanics that they are supposed to.  Gear can help in some cases but when your problem is with execution of mechanics there is no amount of gear that can help you.

I will say what I heard so many times and it is so true.

Gear is an excuse that bad players use for not being able to do simple mechanics.

I would love to see what they would say if you asked them directly why they did or did not do some things during the battle and see if they can figure out how to get the word gear into their defense.

Being I am the good old Grumpy one lets see if I can try and answer some of the questions I might ask and make the excuse be about gear some way.

1) Why are you not having your pet attack the slime/ooze?
- Because it is not worth it, if I had better gear it would be worth having it switch targets however.

2) Why are you (melee) attacking the slime/ooze before it chooses it's target?
- Because my gear sucks and I need to get as much time attacking in as possible.

3) Why are you not collapsing on the skull to split the damage?
- Because my gear sucks and I can not take the extra damage.

Shall I continue?  No need to really.  I think my point is obvious. People using gear as an excuse is the reason we are failing on it.  I bet you anything you want, I am 100% sure that the groups that down it with no wipes do not make those mistakes I needed to ask.  I bet they have pets attack adds.  I bet they wait to target the adds.  I bet they split the damage.  They are doing it because they are doing what they are supposed to be doing.  Gear would have not helped anyway if people are not doing what they are supposed to be doing.  Would gear make someone have their pet target the add?  Would gear make someone wait to attack the adds?  Would gear make people collapse when they should?  No, no and no.

Gear is nice and all but gear does not make decisions.  The player makes the decisions and as long as the player makes the wrong decisions there is nothing gear can do to help you.

Gear shows the potential you have.  Nothing more.

Not a Bad Start

The first run back at the old guild as a guild only run did not go bad at all.  We only did the first 6 but we did them fast and there were really no issues.  We went for the professor after rot and fester and wiped of course.  We had a whole slew of people that had never seen the fight before so it was expected.  First time up we made it to phase two which is an accomplishment in it's own when people had never even watched the video before.  Second attempt we were 300K from phase three.  Now that is absolutely amazing. 

My first time through there with a great crew we wiped at least seven or eight times before getting that close to phase three.  The beauty of that is once you make phase three the fight is basically over.  The end of the fight is basically a tank and spank even back before the buff, with the buff it is no problem at all.  So we were basically a few seconds worth of DPS away from finishing it on the second try with a lot of people having never been there and some having never even watched a video.

I am not sure if that is a testament to my raid leadership or a testament to having good people there at the time.  Maybe it was a little of both.  I did my standard approach to explaining it.  I forgot what everything was called and just gave general descriptions on what to do.  I never bog people down with too much information unless they ask for it.  I think that is the downfall of many raids.

I am looking forward to sunday when we continue.  I think I can lead these people through that, dreamwalker and sin with no problem.  It is nice to be doing something again.