I tanked once. Shocking experience. A blast -literally- through Utgarde Pinnacle, with several multi-mob pulls which people have gotten used to AoE through. Guess can the current protection warrior hold that kind of pulls easily anymore, especially when you consider the increase of DPS damage the clothies are enjoying?
Like I said, it was a shocking experience, but nothing much changed on my starter: Charge - Thundeclap - step back/side/more condensed spot - Shockwave - Cleave - Thunderclap and start cracking Shield Slams, Devastates and occasional Revenges into the mix. Oh, and with Incite talent, Heroic Strike whenever the rage gave chance. More or less with those we went and the result was a pretty enjoyable, though hectic, run. It felt like I had more to do and really had to work from time to time to keep the mage and warlock alive.
On my shadowpriest I got a nice surprise: after talents, glyphs and reforging, my raw dps on normal 80 dummy rose from 3.5k to 4.6k without a problem, and the effect from changing to elite dummy was mere 200 dps! After reforging my gear still has loads of extra hit in it, but this may well change when I get enough Justice Points to get myself a real DPS gear instead of this healer-dps mix I have gotten myself into. In the guild hc I ranked nicely to the second place in ICC25 geared people, so no problems (especially now that Event Horizon works!).
My baby DK feels awkward and I think the changes felt most in his performance. Still, I'm not at the bottom of the DPS and I could easily patch the misses of a pally tank in VH, saving our sad behinds time and again when he missed a mob or just took the wrong turn to the portal. With all that ICC level gear he should have known VH like the back of his hands... must have had a baaad day.
But my pride and joy is my banker druid. At the tender level of 29 he was plunged into 4.0.1. and changed from balance to restoration. And I can undersign each, every and all comments stating that druid healing has become fun. Simple and fun from the low levels on (have to try that on my horde druid, who is balance by main). Though I have to agree with other bloggers who have stated that the LFD instances while levelling have been nerfed to the ground: only the bear tank in Scarlet Monastery caused me problems due to taking in so much burst damage from time to time, otherwise the tank classes self-healing capabilities are incredible. The warrior tanks (both protection and arms, even a fury tanked once!) I have had I have been able to nuke the mobs all along the way. Their self-heals just keep them popping from 50% to full without a thought. But it is fun to run around, keep HoT's on the tanks and tackle the other healing issues along the way.
The only one I had issues with is my baby mage on Horde side. At level 30 she doesn't get much talents and I just couldn't get hang of the fire spells and rotations on one run. I'm only wondering how the ones I ran Scarlet Monastery with my druid could pull the damage they did, but alas, I didn't pay attention to their specs or spells at all.
And yes. Copra is alive again. Boomkin is FUN! The new Eclipse mechanics make the class so much more fun to go than it was, and it is very, very rewarding to land those crits here and there.
All in all, weekend was a win. I even dabbled into the glyph market with very low level glyphs and scored some nice profits.
Now I have to go and play by the guidelines Spinks so generously put out. It's hard, but more fun now than it ever was. Even though it requires some change in mentality from all in a group.
Tanking, that is.
C out
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