One you remember, the other you don't

I've been lately playing on my banker/AH toon, that being resto/balance druid. On and off through the AH blast and all, I somehow got into the healing business and made it the chore of my choice. All in all, I blasted through Northrend by dailies, just a few quest chains to keep things interesting and PUGs.

Of the quest chains I have to say that I'm very, very disappointed by the fact how the Wrathgate episode ends. It's very much the same lackluster anti-climax which is so familiar from the Cataclysm areas final quests. The chains just... end. In Wrathgate the end comes by Alexastra whispering the character to come to her, but then there is nothing. Only a kind of separate text blurb without anything relevant and the worst part is the fact that this happens every time you come close enough to the Wrathgate area, where Alexastra and her consort stay, like keeping guard for the dead.

What a stupid conclusion.

No more raiding into Undercity, no more feeling epic with the faction leader, no more being belittled by the big bad Forsaken.

Also what is evident is the fact that the content has been nerfed otherwise, too. You see, I soloed at about appropriate level some group content which I had hard time to complete as my protection warrior in this druid's restoration spec... with no problem at all!

Anyhow, the title of the post claims that you remember one but not the other. By this I mean that as I was PUGging through the Northrend normal instances, I noticed that I would remember that bad tank from the first time I ran with him, but not the good ones with whom I ran even some instances in a row. And how do I rank a bad tank in levelling instances? How's this: imagine the Oculus start. The deathknight tank runs off to the mobs along the route, running to the farthest one in each group and just pulling this one and hoping that the D&D area would pull the rest. He reaches the final mob guarding the portal to the platform before the rest of the group has been able to finish the leftovers even from the first mob. Oh, yes, he also has this uncanny way of getting enormous amounts of damage in within very short time.

How about this: the same deathknight tank runs through Gundrak in the speedy manner, through mobs without checking even his chat window. There comes a quiet moment and as I have ran out of mana, I announce it in party and general. As I sit down to drink, the tank picks up his pace again and almost, just almost dies before I come to save the day.

As I mention to this tank that he should at least wait for the healer to be around when he starts, the response is mind numbing.

"Why do you slack then?"

At least four runs with this Griseflax (see, I remember the name even) and I still cannot understand the creep.

Sadly, there have been a couple of excellent deathknight tanks along the way, whose names totally elude me. Thank you, dear anonymous tanks, for saving my day and playing the game as it should be played.

As a concentrated group effort, by taking everyone into account and making the best of the group. Rather than being better than the rest.

Thank you good tanks. Sorry I don't remember your names.
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Applying for the Throne

Ah. Another Thursday, an evening with brothers. In WoW.

The usual question opens up our discussion: "What shall we do tonight?"
As usual answer comes from all three at the same instance: "Conquer the World Well, I don't know. How about the Throne of Tides?"

Ok. Settled. The exceptional success of Blackrock Caverns was pushed aside and no-one had any interest in trekking back there so we started towards the Throne. Forgetting completely the greatly successful fiasco  entrance we had last time we started moving towards the whirling maelstrom leading to the entrance of the flashy instance.

Needless to say, we were all a bit nervous about the place: as the instances in Northrend had taught us to use our main skills to the max and forget about all the other skills completely, this seemed to be a new paradigm shift for all of us, for some more than for the others. Thankfully I had been keeping my fingers alert over the three manning of IC5 mans by using all skills in my bars more or less every now and then, making the tanking maybe a bit more hectic than typically, but still helping the healer to keep up with it all.

The trash mobs were a bit lackluster encounters, as be blew through them in a breeze. The only one causing us any thought were the Naz'jar Sentinels with their pools of goo, demanding us to move and kite the mob.

Finally it was there. Lady Naz'jar. Förgelös, our resident blabbermouth rogue pointed out that this was easier than last time because we hadn't died on the trash at all. How wrong that sentence was proven pretty soon after we took on Lady Naz'jar.

And again.

And again.

After a while we started to get frustrated because after each wipe we could see that we were progressing nicely. At the same time Förgelös and Bishopgeorge were discovering new skills to use, which actually helped to make the progress even further. It took about 7 wipes for our gear to dissipate and we had to take a break and visit a vendor. It was time to reconcile what we had learned.

You see, the problem wasn't the Geysir Lady Naz'jar puts in. Nor to cancel the Shock Blast, which the tank did routinely (/flex). Nor even the adds which spawned, because we pretty soon came up with a way to deal with them.

It was the cursed Plague Seed infection Lady Naz'jar placed on a random member. Cursed damage over time which put too much strain on healer.

(To be honest, I'm fooling myself: they were all pains to begin with, but we learned to cope with them. The infection was something we couldn't do a thing about. Or at least we didn't find a way to avoid it.)

From the tank point of view, the fight is simple and nicely multi-faceted in threesome. First it's Lady Naz'jar, solo tanking duty with moving the boss away from the Geysir swirls on the floor and interrupting the Shock Blasts every now and then. In this part there are no cooldowns needed: it's a simple tank, interrupt, move encounter. But at 60% she summons two Naz'jar Spellsingers and one Sentinel to deal with the intruders - us - and that's when things get tricky. Not for the tank in a full group, naturally, but in this threesome. You see, we do not have the luxury of crowd control at this point: the rogue doesn't get in fast enough to sap any of them. We had to come up with another strategy...

My first idea was to have Förgelös kill first Spellsinger, Bishopgeorge to fear the Sentinel and Laiskajaakko take the second Spellsinger. It was discarded at first as being too messy and too slow to activate. At one point it occured to Bishopgeorge (who had been practising the skill on the trash already) that he could Mind Control the Sentinel. It was tricky, as the Mind Control cast time aggroed Sentinel on him.

The funny part of it was that it worked. It worked well in fact, but it required inventive use of cooldowns on the tanks side to aid the healing during the time of the Mind Control - which had the additional bonus of replenishing Bishopgeorge's mana!

As we returned from the repairs, everyone had done some shopping, too: we were lacking buff foods, every one of us, so the added boost of food in the cycle made things even more even. With all the buffs I found out that my tank's health rose above 80k!

And off we went and wiped time an again, every time getting closer and closer. I even commented to the guild chat that Lady Naz'jar was our new Scourgelord Tyrannus: a fight we just didn't get through.

In the end the fight turned out to be a fascinating one. Sans the Lady Naz'jar spank and tank, the adds formed to the following pattern:
- Adds spawn, tank picks up one Spellsinger, dps another.
- After initializing the aggro on the first Spellsinger, tank takes aggro of the other Spellsinger too (Heroic Throw ftw.) and taunts the Sentinel = All three mobs on tank.
- Tank hits a required cooldown (Shield Wall if in near 'full' health, Last Stand and Enraged Regeneration added if below)
- Healer puts a HoT on tank and
- Mind Controls the Sentinel
- Proceed to pounce the Spellsinger still up to pulp
- If time, beat the Sentinel down.

And at that point Lady Naz'jar would come out. Over the fight you can damage Lady Naz'jar with throwing a Heroic Throw on her (also shooting and thrown weapons work, casts... I'm not sure, we didn't have time).

If we were lucky, as we most certainly usually are not, Sentinel was down. If not, I had to tank them both till healed and Bishop would take the Sentinel again: the increased dps was a boon in the mix, really.

Before the last fight I decided to make some adjustments to my gear, though: off with the Cataclysm greens in some spots and in with the tanking purples from WotLK with more dodge and avoidance. Exchanging 5000 hp and some 50 armour with decent chunk of avoidance in general might have an impact.

It did. The amount of incoming damage reduced dramatically and the fight was on.

In the end she went down. It was one of those silent moments, only Förgelös stating from somewhere there "Did we really get her down? What happened? Wait, did I miss something?" and cheers.

It took us about three and half an hours from zero to hero, to come up with a strategy and execution to reach this.

The rest of the instance seemed bland: the middle boss after Naz'jar was a weak exercise, and didn't even require cooldowns (popped them twice in Lady and available even more). The headhugger... Sufficient to say that Förgelös' daggers had gotten a bit beaten on Lady Naz'jar, so one of the broke before the headhugger and another in the fight. (He's always trying to give the bosses an upper hand for some reason). Still we one shot it.

As we entered Neptulon's chambers, our gear was pretty wasted. Förgelös had his old item lv200 daggers on him, almost broken, Laiskajaakko was more or less yellow on the damage screen and all. Still we had over-exceeded our expectations manyfold: It was our first time in the instance and we made it to the final boss!

The last fight was epic, too, as we fought well, hard and till the last drop of muck.

What a night. What a bunch.

Next time we will claim the throne!!
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I don't have the guts

Christmas came and went: now we're trying to suffer the rest of the fabulous food that we just couldn't eat up. Oh, yes, and I'm back at work, filing things.

The little time I spent playing went to doing some secondary things, like working on AH, starting a non-violent pacifist gnome priest and levelling some unnecessary tradeskills on my secondary toon, my spriest. I have been deliberately avoiding taking my warrior out of the closet, because I am confused, scared and mixed up with the tanking in the new instances.

I just do not have the guts to take up on a PUG to run the instances.

The reason is the same as it was with the WotLK endgame instances and taking up on raiding: I fear that I'm not good enough to do it and that I ruin the evening - or the instance - for the rest of the group whom I will never meet again.

The change in the way how tanking goes changed quite a bit, at least in my book. The last few heroics after the Shattering (before Cataclysm hit) really showed me that I just couldn't handle several rampant mobs at a time: to let one pass is two misses too many for me. When I'm tanking I want to have things under control, and nothing should go past my presence. "Thou shall not pass!"

But... the run with the Stooges and my two PUG's with my shadow priests showed me that even though the instances are pretty simple - especially the trash mobs - I can't expect to keep all the threat on me all the time. Blackrock Caverns was pretty simple but the Three Stooges will have hard time with the encounters later on where one has to be tied to the beam, you know what I mean. But as a tank in a PUG... not my bowl of porridge. Throne of the Tides is even worse, as some of the boss encounters evolve around the idea of multiple mobs spawning around the area: the group - which was two-three levels higher than my spriest, but I still scored the second highest dps... - wiped twice due to mismanaged aggro and lack of attention from the druid tank. Knowing the lack of area threat generation of a protection warrior, I can't see myself enjoying the red Threat Plates on my screen alongside the screams of agony from the group members. And accusations after that.

Oh, I know. There is this group of people who say that because you are in a guild you shouldn't have to PUG at all. Sadly the majority - read all - of the active guild are at the cap already, running heroic modes: knowing how nice it was to go through the same instance time and again, there is bound to be next to no interest to return to the normals after gaining the option to run a heroic. I'm assuming this and I doubt I'm too much off with this.

So, I'll just level up by questing which is nice. With the current rate of advancement I'll be off the boat once again.

Only because I don't have the guts to ruin others day by messing around in my tanking.

C out
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Impressions of warrior roles

My main role is that of tank, specifically protection warrior. I levelled up as one, took a secondary spec as Arms as that was the least loved PvE spec there was in warrior specs and stuck with it.

4.0.1 brought many changes with it. Most meaningful for me was the fact that the button mashing and responsiveness of the action buttons was replaced with skill queues and much slower paced, cooldown based gamestyle. I'm still fighting to be patient enough to wait for the skills to be ready, and usually end up banging the same skill twice due to queuing.

The whole issue I have with the current, slowed down action system is that of learning the new pace of play. In addition to this the AoE threat generation of protection warriors was lowered to almost non-existing, meaning that in multi-mob pull the over effective ranged DPS will steal one or more mobs from the tank even in the best case scenario. The only guidance I can give is to let them have it, as in 5 man heroics the DPS will kill any normal mob fast enough to survive the onslaught. The tanks responsibility in multi-mob pulls is to protect the healer nowadays, instead of protecting the whole group as it was before the 4.0.1.

With single target threat there is no such thing as aggro problem. Really. Shield Slam and Revenge take care of the needed aggro and if you take care and push that Heroic Strike there as your rage dump, you will fly high above even the most aggressive ranged DPS there is.

Mainly because of that sluggish feel to the protection play I have recently been playing as Arms dps. Granted, my DPS gear is lousy, mainly quest blues and a couple of lv200 purples to shine it with, but still there is some nice DPS to give in the encounters. Seldom I sit at the bottom of the DPS meter after a heroic, just above the healer (that happens, too, but then the rest of the group is in tier10+ and even the tank delivers outrageous 5k+ damage). On the average the DPS goes in the range of 3.3-3.5k depending on the heroic: the more there are multi-mob pulls, the lower it goes as there are not too many area DPS options open for us. On the other hand, in single target boss fights I can easily go above 4k as the Execute still brings in nice crits when the mob is below 25% of it's health.

And as Arms I very seldom see the sluggish feel take away the fun from the play.

Arms as a tree is a peculiar one. You have distinct separation of PvE and PvP talents in the tree, some of which are not at all useful in the other role. I can see several of the talents I passed work extremely effectively in PvP, but have no use in PvE encounters. Then again, either way, the build is very, very easy to come up with, even without any EJ originating number crunching.

Strenght is still the main stat to go for, as long as you take care of the cap values in Hit, Crit and Haste, in that order. For hit the cap is 263, still, and anything above that is a waste (Correction: The current hit cap for melee is 8% which equals 246 hit rating. That 263 was the base before 4.0.1., adjusted by talents.). I think the cap for Crit is around 70%, so as much as you can muster is best and the same with haste. As long as you keep strength a the primary focus on gemming, you should be doing great, really.

At least that's been my philosophy, and so far it has served me well.

All in all, even though I've seen Fury warrior in 5 man heroic delivering above 11k DPS, I can say that Arms is a valid, but not as shining DPS spec. Like before, Arms will not rule the DPS meters, but will deliver without a fail.

The overall impression of these warrior specs for me is that the slower pace requires a lot of practise and slowing down properly requires that your computer can handle the game at reasonable frame rate during the combat. The queuing will ruin your day if you lag, but as a plate wearer, the result shouldn't be catastrophic unless the boss hits unexpectedly hard.

Warriors are definitely the crop of the earth: not necessarily the best of all classes for their selected roles, but best in what they do, and most definitely the steadiest and sturdiest of them all. We are the cannonfodder and the ones who stand last: not something any other class can say.
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It's not fun anymore

I did try my best to overcome my gripes with the current state of warrior tanking, but I just couldn't. Really.

For some reason the whole thing doesn't seem to work. Don't get me wrong, I like the talent change and the challenge it poses to all classes. Even though the talent system is so streamlined that you could call it a dumbed down version of the earlier one, there are less options to really gimp your toon down to unproductive leach. In fact, there are none at the moment: the PvE and PvP specs perform pretty nicely in the other function as well, thanks to overlapping talents.

But the game feels unresponsive.

Before the patch, when I pushed a button, the skill happened. WoW is very much renown for this, being very responsive in the combat, and thus very enjoyable to play. Yesterday I ran a couple of heroics and Headless Horsemans and it just didn't feel right. Even if I take the inability to hold aggro in a multi-mob situation off of the equation, the combat felt like it just wasn't following my commands.

In this I'm in the same boat with Baenhoof of the Tankatronic blog, where she says:

The one thing…the ONE thing that I cannot fucking stand about this patch is the goddamned ability queueing. I dont -want- to have to WAIT until a dev lands onto one mob before I can tab over to the next (tab is fucked up now, by the way) and slowly hit that one, too.

I like mashing keys. Its fun. Its part of the reason why the warrior is my main and not the paladin or the DK. The ability queueing feels sluggish and unresponsive and needs to be gotten rid of. It was part of the reason I enjoyed WoW over say, Aion- everything was more streamlined and tended to feel faster.

I’d really appreciate a choice to revert back to the old, quicker way of doing things- and from the look of the official forums, so would everyone else. 

She points out exactly what I mean: it feels sluggish, and I feel I don't have control over what is happening in the game.

Then again, if I'm to believe Spinks and Kadomi, I am not any good as a tank, either, as they state that nothing has really changed in the way the warrior should be played and haven't noticed anything changing in the playability of our class at all.

The other option is that my computer or addons are borking the game, but that doesn't hold when I'm very content with the other classes I'm playing (DK, Spriest and druid). They seem to be up there, performing nicely, so why the protection warrior feels so like he's sleepwalking?

I'm just no good at it, and where the other classes have gotten the fun back into their game, the warriors got the work part back. Like a moonkin in one of the heroics said: "your class got the raped in the patch, pal" after I voiced my concern over the well being of the rest of the group.

That is exactly how I feel. It's more a work than games.

It is not fun anymore.

C out

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Some thoughts about tanking

I love to tank. I really do. The thing is, that I see the 5 man group in an instance as a team in which everyone plays their own position. Like in an ice-hockey team.

The Tank
For me the tank is the goal keeper. He's the one who states that the 'Buck Stops Here', taking care of the rest of the team and securing that they can do their job properly and as easily as possible. Tanking is simple and easy in principle, requiring only some sense of spatial awareness on top of good sense on the skills in her/his disposal. The gear is a nice addition and brings more survivability to the mix, but it's not the thing that makes a tank, really. It just makes the job easier by far.

The DPS
The part of the DPS is actually the hardest, when you think of it. The DPS are the rest of the field players, the front line assault team creating the damage to down the mob or boss. What makes the job of the DPS hard is the fact that the threat the tank is generating has a limit, while the limit of the damage DPS is generating is much higher. The most of the problems in tank losing aggro isn't from her/him being a slacker, but the DPS being too eager to shine in the damage meters. The thin line between 90% aggro and aggro break should be the DPS's concern, not necessarily the tanks, because the tank can do only so much to remedy that. Instead of staring at the damage meter, the DPS should stare their threat meter. And keep themselves out of trouble by not stealing the aggro from the tank. In a good ice-hockey game the players make sure that the goalie has as little to do as possible: the same should apply to the tanking and dps. The DPS should take care that the Tank has as little extra to do as possible to ensure smooth run.

The Healer
Actually,  the healer is not playing in the hockey field at all, but is at the back, handing out the drinks and keeping the tank up and the DPS doing their part. The gentle rub from the healer to the dps should be enough to keep the game rolling, not the stitching or rubbing the sores of the over aggressive player. Healer is the most important piece of the puzzle, even though her/his contribution is the least easy to measure.

So why do I love tanking?

It's staying on top of the game, doing your best to keep the encounters rolling smoothly and doing your best without a measurable meter to track you down. DPS is fun and furious competition in reaching as high as possible in the damage meter: the competition and measurable success makes it so much fun in it's own right. When the DPS takes their aggro generation seriously, even a less well geared tank can do their work in a heated situation. As long as the aggro doesn't go wild and the tank can concentrate on keeping the mob/boss on her/himself, the game flows smoothly.

As a tank you are your own critic, you are the only one who can really tell how to improve and how to do the thing you do so well even better the next time. It's not about perfecting the rotation, or about perfecting the button sequence. I love the fact that I can analyse my performance on my own, find my own lacking skills and find remedies for them.

The worst part in the current speed running of the heroics (when you have gotten that far in the game) is the fact that you really cannot learn anything from the runs. The DPS is acting like a ice-hockey team's primadonna, doing everything on their own, without worrying about the rest of the team and complaining about the performance of the rest of the team when they encounter problems. The healers are yawning through the instances until the fore mentioned primadonna strikes an odd chord and gets almost killed. And there are only so many 5 man instance bosses who can cause problems to a decent geared tank anymore, as long as the healer can take it without falling asleep.

I believe the instances would run even smoother and provide more fun, if people would just remember their spot and follow the cue of the tank. It really doesn't hurt to be polite and play as good as you can in any group you may encounter.

It really pays later on. One way or another.

I've seen the future... or something

I think I've seen the future, unless Blizzard pulls another clever ruse to change the up and coming trend. Like with the LFD, when the end game was getting more and more frustrating due to finding a group for heroics.

I mean the players getting cockier and less class-clever along the time. Sure, Blizzard has stated that 30% of the people running the trial continue beyond that, but what about the next hurdle taking the people off the grind? It's not the levelling, not at all. It's the -now a bit softened- hit of hitting the level cap. Suddenly the railroading stops and you are faced with the gearing grind, no direction, only requirements.

And after that, when the new player has gotten into heroics (too much too soon IMO), s/he must start to wonder why people call her/him noob. Isn't dps supposed to pull and kill? Isn't healer supposed to beat the living daylights out of the mobs, competing in the dps meter? Doesn't 4.5k Gearscore mean you are a great player?

Really.

I learned a couple of days ago that my GS is a bit over 4.8k, and I'm not going to change that unless I get myself to raid. I'm content with the two set bonuses I have, both in Devastate, which is the bread and butter for the current tank. Naturally -as we're talking about warrior tanks- this is just a part of the rotation, but still, Devastate is the skill of the month, or at least as long as the PvP people get to the point that it has to be nerfed, like our Warbringer and Shield Slam were. I can see that this isn't going to take long.

The more people are ushered up at the constantly increasing speed, the more complete newbies will surface. People who haven't had to learn their class, or do not have to understand the mere basics of their class. For dps, anything goes, as long as they deliver the damage.

It's not that simple for us tanks, nor for the under-appreciated healers, though. Why? We have to live with the cocky, full of themselves dps'ers, who cannot take a single thing without reverting to a litany of abbreviations.

Hunters stacking INT and SPI, rogues pulling, mages blaming the healer after they get killed (but no wipe)... The seeds of destruction are already planted, and as Cataclysm is aimed both for the old gamers and for the new audience, we will see even more of the same. Or even worse.

This can be seen already at the cap: Already the LFG ICC10 announcements require achievement, spec and gearscore. Even the latest raid weekly on our server, Anub'Rekhan was called for with the requirements I mentioned! Naxx starter raid, with this gear composition you have at lv80? As far as I know, the current, newly dinged lv80 has better gear than the ones who cleared Naxx the first time it was introduced in Northrend. And now people are skipping Naxx, Ulduar and even ToC to enter ICC directly.

Thinking this from the newbie tank point of view (my point of view, newbie because lacking raid experience), I cannot see a new aspiring tanks emerging. They will most likely be alts or new mains of players who have seen the game this far already and are willing to sacrifice their sleep for others.

You see, running as tank -or a healer- through random heroics isn't a task for faint hearted.

So the future I see is bleak because of the players that will come to the game. Not because of the game itself, but because of the clueless players who whine the game to be changed to something that suits them better. You know, the know it alls who cannot play their class, even if you drew a roadmap to it.

Eh, maybe... like me?

To Tank or not to Tank: that is the question

Here is another guest post from my good friend Azariell, who approached me with this text as his view on how tanking and as a continuation to his earlier guest post about the behaviour of the anonymous LFD PUG. As it happens, this post is very closely related to the post I linked yesterday, which I would like to push up once again.

This Shakespearian reference might seem very cheesy at first, but when reading the rest of the Hamlet scene it actually covers the content of the following combination of thoughts pretty well (Literary fanatics may shoot me now for such a ‘disrespectful’ comparison).

I am not going to talk about how tanks (and healers) are blamed for everything, and that they are the most underappreciated classes. What I want to talk about is what should tanks accept as demands from their party members and to which extent this is related to the new ‘Looking for Dungeon tool’ (combined with the rather unique position tank are placed in when using the tool).

So for the next 4 lines of the Scene (for those who care Hamlet Act 3, Scene 1)

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep; 

Being a tank, you have certain advantages; one of the most important ones these days is that you can find a group using the LFD-tool within seconds of pressing the ‘join’ button. DPS can often wait up to 15-20 minutes before they get a group. Nowadays, a complete heroic instance can be ran in 20 minutes, effectively doubling the amount of heroics that a tank is able to do compared to a DPS. This of course comes with the extra emblems which can be used for those all important gear pieces, or just to make a quick buck by selling the raw gems that you can buy.

However, to be a tank in the LFD-tool, you get ‘forced’ into a certain mindset. The GOGOGO mentality by now could almost be a word in the dictionary. The DPS cannot continue without the tank taking the lead, but the only thing holding them back is the sky high repair bills. So instead they start to put pressure on the tank (and healer) “GOGOGO” “What are you waiting for” and so on. And for some reason, I tend to oblige those requests, even though I am not comfortable racing through an instance at such pace. Sure, I can do it, but do I want to? I know it’s just the power of the group (or single individual often) and as a tank you just want to be liked and not be told that you are a crappy tank.

But to whom are we catering when we fulfill the request of that DPS-er? My best guess is that only the fully geared players, who can blow through an entire instance without mana shortage might like it. To be honest, on my fully geared Warlock I have no problems taking things a bit more slow. Actually having some fun with the people in the group counts for something too right?

But the people duped by this are the tank himself, who is pressured into a pace which might not suit his play style. The healer who is strained even more by not only the constant healing on the tank, but also the healing on the group. And finally the not so well geared players. Players who have mana problems, underperform because the pace is way to fast for them to catch a breath (mana breaks have become a phenomenon of the past).

The strangest thing is that tanks are in short supply. The fact that tanks have a group within seconds of joining says it all. So, why do tanks feel pressured into doing things they do not want? They are the ones holding the best cards right? Taking this out into the open and acting like you hold those cards, is also not the solution as it would only be seen as arrogant behavior.

So to go back to my Shakespeare reference: Do we just keep taking the blows in order to rake in the easy cash? Or do we make a stand and say ‘screw you guys, I’m going home’. The second, however, results in becoming a disliked tank with all consequences attached.

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep; 

Now a follow up question would be, what demands should healers accept from their group? Should they accept a tank who’s personal mission it is to chain pull as many mobs as possible without thinking about the healer?

To aspiring tanks

Two links to help all you tanks not sure about yourself as leaders or your skills in tanking heroics. Worth reading and acting upon:

Tank Hard post On Being A Tank.

Spinks in Welcome to Spinksville on Overcoming the Fear of Tanking.

In short: Get a grip of yourself, grab your sword and shield and just tank it.

There isn't really a shortcut to great tanking. Or leading a group.

Leading or not

It seems that 3.3 patch has incited the blogosphere to a new rage again, with most of the posts being very enthusiastic about two things in the patch: LFD and Icecrown.

Naturally, as those were the main things the patch introduced.

I'm going to delve on the LFD tool a bit more. Tarsus of Tanking for Dummies wrote about the tanking in LFD and listed things why majority of the people do not want to tank in LFD tool. He based this on the fact that tanks get grouped in seconds, while even healers have to wait for a while, at least. The list was as follows:

1. Playing a tank is more expensive in terms of gold than other roles.
2. The learning curve on tanking is steeper.
3. There are less “slots” open for tanks doing the end-game.
4. Encounter Design makes you feel “fragile”.
5. No one wants to failknight tank or look at the big bear butt. 

And I have to agree on almost all of them. On the last one I'm not as sure, but then again, being a tank mainly I don't have the luxury to evaluate other tanking classes except our own guildies and by far the big butted gear IS the tank I will refer to in my performance. Granted, our experience both in game and in tanking differs quite a lot... 

But then again RJK from The Savage Coast wrote a nice recap on his experience as a tank in LFG and as it happens, his 3rd point strikes a chord in me: I am a careful tank, too. Or at least I try to make sure things work and everyone is prepared. Of course, there are deviations from the rule, like the wipe I caused in PoS by charging without checking the healer's mana... but most of the time I am way too careful, to the point of frustration especially in LFD PUGs. However, I'd rather be safe than sorry and I have to refer to one phrase that has stuck into my mind from a blog post sometime ago. I don't remember what blog it was, but it had this rule on fast:

Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast. Slow is fast.

So if I prepare and move one step at a time, I will end my job faster than hurrying and fumbling from the beginning. And boy is this hard to understand in some PUG's.

Due to my (in)experience as a tank -overall- I don't trust my judgement in heroics I've run once or twice with vastly over geared guildies. This tends to lead into problems in PUGs in which the leadership is bestowed on my shoulders: I don't want to lead if I'm not confident on what I'm doing. This leads to the post Larísa from The Pink Pigtail Inn wrote about taking leadership in a PUG. Especially this I find both familiar and very comforting (to know I'm not the only one thinking like this):

I rarely try to take the leadership when I’m doing group activities in WoW. It isn’t because I’m afraid of leading other people; I think it’s rather because of my lack of deep knowledge in other classes and game mechanics. I’ve always thought I would make a poor instructor to tanks and healers what to do, whom to heal or which mob to charge, taunt, whatever, so I’ve happily left those decisions to others, more experienced players.

Instead of asking the question Larísa is asking about how to take leadership, I would like to ask how to politely decline from leading? I've stated directly in the PUG's that I'm in this dungeon for the first, second or even third time just to make the rest of the team to understand that I really don't know the instance so well. But how about the new ones? Is it reasonable to have a group in which healer and/or dps have ran through the dungeon and the tank hasn't, and the leadership is put on the inexperienced tank?

And why does it always have to be the tank leading? Wasn't the marking capability given to all in the party?

But for me the best part of the LFD system has been the fact that I get to work with different kinds of groups: some work, some not. The wiping is a monster to me, which I try to avoid the best I can, so I'm learning new things from my class and my play style. I learn from one challenging run more than several too easy ones.

The badges are an additional bonus as long as I can do my job. Not as a leader, but as a warrior.

Hits and blunders (YAWP)

LFD is a wonderfull tool, which connects total strangers across the battleground to fight either select or -more often- completely random Wrath of the Lich King dungeon. It works like a clockwork, is simple, fast and very entertaining, most of the time.

And with that prelude I'm off to my weekend.

All well and fine in the world of Azeroth. I met both exceptionally working groups as well as one or two obnoxiously intolerable dps divas, mainly from the DK persuasion: I wonder if DK's have somehow replaced the most obnoxious group of all times -that being the Huntards- as the most self-centered players in the game? Then again, lets not let the few rotten apples to spoil the whole basket: there were also excellent DK's with whom I ran the Random Dungeons. Too bad they were guildies, but what can you expect? :P

The total anonymity of the LFD tool is yet to surface, for people are very polite and nice to each other. Only in few of the random groups I found people eager to chat, the most vocal was this one mage who's main phrase was "gogogogogo" after any and all encounters. But then again, that run through Drak'Tharon was very smooth and fast.

There are few annoying things about the LFD tool, too. The first, which started to pick me the first time I ran it, is the fact that a) you can be 'denied' from a group before it launches and b) of someone declines the group invite for a reason or another the whole group is returned to the queue. The first one I cannot explain because I haven't tried to be a leader yet, but the second is annoying example on how dumb the piece of program is. It makes a selection from the set population, but cannot make a reserve list from which to amend if any of the individuals rejects the invitation. Probably this can -and hopefully will- be tweaked in latter versions.

One nice thing, though, for the DPS classes over there. As I grouped with a guildie, a DK, we got a random group running within seconds. So in a way he was riding along with me being a tank and in constant need from the system. All in all, it pays to stick with a tank in this sense, too. As we found out, we saved each other's butts more than once, and the groups we ran from wipe more than once. Imagine that tank and DPS save the day after a triggerhappy paladin -the healer- decides to tank a miniboss and few adds... It was fun and furious and all the cooldowns were used, but we prevailed. And were the only ones alive when the dust settled.

The only thing that didn't go as well as I thought was the finale of the weekend, in which I decided to go with guildies into the IC hc 5mans chain. Forge of Souls was a blast and went so fast I didn't even know what happened. Really, I had to ask before we entered the portal to Pit of Saron what just happened. I was just keeping the mobs and bosses on me and trying to keep them hitting me, mostly without a problem. Old rules of not standing in anything and avoiding the blasts applied, FoS was surprisingly easy. For the group, that is.

Pit of Saron was something else, though. At least for me, as I have this problem with moving and tanking at the same time. Add to that multiple mobs and I'm having really hard time.

Forgemaster Garfrost was already somewhat hard on us, as the healer got eaten alive by the cold stacking on him on the first try. This was the first wipe in the whole run, but not the last... sadly.

Ick was the second, and I'm not sure as of yet, why. Maybe it was me, not moving the boss enough to help the dps to be in a spot without the toxic sludge, or something, because on the second run it went smoothly. The ramp up to the passageway proved to be problematic. My computer had frozen earlier due to some UI issue, but now I got DC'd. Luckily before a pull, but never the less. Something's wrong with my 'puter, as this wasn't the first nor the last case of freezes and odd behaviour. But up we went to the Scourgelord Tyrannus.

Which was the wipefest. First pull: I didn't know what hit me, but it hit well over 17k overkill. Second pull: it hit even faster and harder. Third pull: my screen froze just as Tyrannus jumped off of his mount. I came back to witness a wipe.

So. It left a very sour taste in my mouth.

Things to be happy about. New shiny shoulders for Laiskajaakko: it cost 45 Triumphs, but was worth it. Pupunen left Outlands and is now capable of Cold Weather Flight in Northrend: she'll next start running the random dungeons, too.

To do: find a good DPS gear set for Laiskajaakko's Arms build. He's lacking a decent dps set for runs in which the tank is better, which are usually guild runs. But it would be nice to see the instances from the dps point of view and to see how other tanks do the job, especially in the instances I have trouble with mobs.

All in all, a good solid weekend of fun.

How about yours?

Do not underestimate the power of the...

INTERNET!

I've been saved from the mental deprivation for gearing and understanding my tanking needs by the power of Twitter. Thanks to Kadomi and Rilgon, I've gained a new insight to the gearing problem. Main point is Kadomi's excellent list for new lv80 tanks in their starting gear, which I have posted about earlier, and my shameless pug in Twitter of another great post of Bob Turkey who is better known for his deep theorycrafting of priestly needs. In that post he links to WoW Gear Wishlist, a site which generates you gear wishlist from the information it can find from WoW Armory, WoWHead and other ranking sites.

This Tweet caused both Kadomi and Rilgon to activate and proves that Twitter has power beyond my imagining.

The lesson today was that you shouldn't be alone, by yourself with your gearing problems, but open up in a polite way and ask the general public what to do. There are so many WoW players out there that there have to be helpful souls among the lot.

Like Kadomi, Rilgon and Veneretio (with his excellent guide on the Emblem of Triumph usage of tanks).

Oh my.

As my blog gets quite a lot hits for tank minimum stats, let's cap them here, too.

For Heroics: Def 535, hp 21k, armor 21k.
For Raid: Def 540, hp and armor as high as you can dream of (ok, hp min 25k, armor 25k, too).

Unbuffed values naturally.

So when you are down in the dumps, looking for guidance or light to follow...

Do not underestimate the power of social networking, Twitter and Interwebz.

How about being utility?

I just listened the Twisted Nether Blogcast episode 58 and something that I have been thinking over some time now just clicked. In the interview portion the discussion crossed the ever sensitive subject of hybrid and pure classes and their roles in raids, where the usual split is between DPS and healing. What Lissanna stated was that as a moonkin/restoration druid she has to specialize into either DPS or healing and there is nothing else for her to offer to the raid than either of these traits.

Either it's poor instance planning, total bull or I have completely misunderstood the concept, but isn't the main point of hybrids their vast array of utility? To be able to fill in and use traits not in their direct concept, even at a slightly lower power?

For a tank, the utility is their ability to disrupt the casters, as Tanking for Dummies so cleverly noted in a recent post. I think it was Veneretio mentioned sometime ago the fact that the best utility of a protection warrior is their ability to disrupt the casters, something I'm severely missing when I change to my DPS build. So instead of looking at the dps or anything else, I try to focus on my utility to be of most use in a current 5 man run.

It should be even more evident on a hybrid class that their whole performance isn't measured in the pure forms of DPS or healing, and the over-used DPS/healing meters should be abandoned! If the raid is dependant on the meters only and not evaluating the overall performance, then there is something missing in the system.

If all encounters are measured only by the DPS/healing meters and capping in them, then the encounter design is lacking. Or the players are playing the wrong kind of whack a mole. Really.

I'm sorry for the fact that this blog is turning more and more a tanking blog. Which isn't my intention, but comes naturally from the fact that my main IS a tank.

And I like to tank.

No.

I LOVE to tank. But I hate the meters, because they do not measure anything relevant. Either the mob dies or the party dies, and there are no inbetweens. The rest is skill, gear and interesting solutions to overcome the resistance.

Sidestepping and tap dancing

After a great success comes the experience which puts you into your place. Learned a lesson yesterday that you should never ever hurry an instance, even a hc with Ulduar-geared people, and I'm very grateful for that. It was no-one's fault it was cut short after a wipe caused by a series of mishaps, and I surely hope that no-one took offense on my oneliner about a lesson learned.

Anyhow, that was the part about tap dancing: you learn everytime you do something and the more you do the more you learn. I was reminded that all it takes is practice, failure and practice. Meaning in short terms to PUG whenever possible and with as varied groups as possible. Hoping for a guild run for gearing up in the middle.

The sidestepping part is that I installed and created first toon to DD Online. Why? The downtime of WoW frustrates the living daylights off of me. And it's free, almost triple-A MMO available to all.

Created a Cleric in Khyber-server, male by the name Broaghan Perpignan. If you happen to 'live' in that server, please nudge me if you see me. The reason is as simple as wanting to group with like minded people in a game which enforces grouping.

My initial thoughts about DD Online are mixed: its very simple and actually quite pretty game, which works nice and smooth, but the forced grouping and combat system cause twitching. My son, 8 years, came to see what I was doing and his first comment was "Oh, you started EQ2 again", only to be followed by "Look, Murlocs!" after I explained it was not EQ2: Sahuagins look like overgrown murlocs for sure. The clicking in combat makes my interest for the game decline, though, and combined with forced grouping it causes total lack of interest.

I'm starting to feel that I'm the negative magnet in the grouping side in any game I join. In DDO I was invited to join a group almost immediately I got through the tutorial (with Sahuagins and all), and I found myself in a group with another cleric. We dove into the warehouse of sorts and this other fellow had faster fingers and better connection or something, as he looted everything we saw. Leaving me with almost nothing. Him being the group leader it was a drag.

The biggest problem in my mind was the fact that the dungeons progress the pace of the 'fastest' or the one who triggers the GM event: In my case I could be standing at the entry door of a cave, trying to loot the few copper coins from a smashed box when the other triggered the event at the exit of the cave. In at least one case there was graphics involved, of which I saw only part, missing the cue to move on.

Like I said, I have mixed feelings about this game. Perhaps I can make myself give it another try and get myself some more motivation to practice my grouping skills in WoW a bit more. Using one game to boost motivation in another.

Just typical.

Listing The List

I had planned on doing a list of entry gear and where to get it, but Kadomi beat me to it.

This post is Tank Love in it's most pure form.

I love Kadomi. I really do.

New dawn after the dark

I have to admit that my last posts have been dark, gloomy and negative overall. Mostly due to my frustration on the gear-centric approach of WoW which really hits you smack in the face when you get to the level cap. You are worth jack without capping certain figures, even though you might as well pass the skill side. You are evaluated by your 'face value' which is that of your stats and gear.

Knowing that that doesn't change later on makes it even more disturbing, though the first threshold is that of getting above that 'capped' level in the crucial stats. For tanks, def cap for heroics and more if you're looking for Naxx and above. It can be a pain if you cannot get into groups, but grouping at below norm def cap is neigh impossible.

I want to be rated by my performance, not by my gear, especially if it's close enough to make it.

This point was proven yesterday in daily heroics. It was a guild run, granted, with two guild newcomers (me and a rogue), and my first time tanking in a heroic. Granted, the Ulduar level gear does miracles to cover the lack in the group, but still I was tanking and I lost aggro only once when our rogue got a bit trigger happy. We had only one death, no wipes and it was fast and clean run.

Sure, the dps was fast enough not to cause any problems, but still I see I performed well. Tank's job is to keep the boss pounding on him and keep the other's safe, up and doing their dps/healing/what ever they are doing.

And I did exactly that. With 22k unbuffed hp, which is 'inadequate' in local /trade calls for LFM. With 542 def to help the healer to stay on top of the damage. I was especially taken for the private comments after the run that "you tanked good for being there for the first time ever". This from a guildie doing weekly Ulduar really felt great!

Of course, it's a learning process, and for the first time since hitting level cap I can see some light at the end of the tunnel. Not only lacking stats or inadequate feeling of not being able to group ex-guild.

And now I can laugh at the LFG calls stating: "DK LFG, 28k HP UB, 560 def cap". Yea, you're a moron for not checking your stats. As well as the next guy calling for [Epic] for ToC normal...

This success gave me confidence on my skills, too. Meaning that I can be in charge of the group in a heroic, fake it if need be, and still make the day.

It's good to be a tank when you pass the gear test. But sucks before capping the crucial stats.

It really does.

The world has run out of tanks

As a matter of fact, the quote was "Jesus Christ, the world has run out of tanks!", and it was from Dalaran /trade channel on Sunday. It was one of those instances I almost responded that "no, the ones available just are not good enough for you", but decided to silence myself.

The next two lines came almost immediately after the first one. "LF 1 tank 1 healer TOC10 normal. Must have gear, experience and DBM.", and last "Tank LF guild doing lots of HC's".

I had to rub my eyes and post these to the guild channel. Caused a silence for a while, only a lol to the first one.

Jesus Christ, the world has run out of tanks!
LF 1 tank 1 healer TOC10 normal. Must have gear, experience and DBM
Tank LF guild doing lots of HC's

What a combination showing the appreciation for tanks. Out of tanks I just commented about: the ones who are available in /trade or LFG tool are not geared enough to cut the need of the 'free market'. The LF TOC10 shows the reason why: the requirements for the free tanks are high (free market tank for TOC10 man? Sure). And the third is the desperation of such a tank to get good enough gear to enter either raiding or fulfill the free market requirements.

And because no tank is masochist enough to be only a freebooter, they are most certainly in a guild and doing their best in a controlled environment rather than PUGging the free market dailies or requests.

Like it's been commented all over the blogosphere, the most crucial parts of a 5 man group are the healer and tank: if the healer is inadequate, the tank will die, causing a wipe. If the tank is inadequate, the healer will die, causing a wipe. But what brings imbalance to this is the fact that not all tanks or dps are equal: hybrids can ease the pain of the healer if they want to, healing whenever the urgency calls. Druids and paladins can do it for themselves and others, DK's to themselves. So the crucial part of a party is the tank, and the worst cards are in the hand of the warrior tank.

Warrior tank is a damage sucking toolbox of interrupt utilities. Enraged regeneration is a once in a fight cooldown heal which is actually the panic button when everything else fails. Warrior tanks cannot heal others, they are best in sucking the damage and staying put.

So why the heck is it so hard for a warrior tank to come up with a group? Because the first question that you encounter is "What is your def?" or "How much HP?". And if they are below what is considered good, you're out and some other class get's the spot due to their other abilities. As if the HP matters if your def is too low...

People are so fixed with the idea that a tank must have 540 def at the cap. It's not so: 535 is the cap in heroics, in normal even this is too much! And the progression is normal 5 man, heroic 5 man, others, I think. Now ToC 5 has ruined the progression and everyone and their cousins are 'farming ToC' and even to the normal 5 man Trial of the Champion they request def cap!

Players at the cap have confused the actual requirements for the game with the requirements of the highest level of the game, raiding. Due to the fact that people are always seeking the route of least resistance, they are looking for the easy way to the best gear.

Example: Laiskajaakko has tanked ToC5, successfully. In one group the healer somehow 'forgot' to heal, or was himself inadequately geared and the group wiped. Who was to blame? The tank as he didn't have proper gems (mind you, I had all +STA gems then and 512 def, no problem). The next wipe with inadequate heals: The tank was lacking aggro (generated steady (!) 3.5k all the time, the first dps came around 1.5k...) and so on. I left the group after the Black Knight fell and didn't get a single piece of gear. Maybe some experience on dealing with poor PUG's but that's all.

That was just the tip of an iceberg: Gundrak. Normal instance, first pull. Laiskajaakko was the only capped toon in, charged to the first three snakes. In comes the hunter's pet -bear- and pulls two of the three. Being on aggressive, this bear starts to follow the retreating mobs and pulls several adds. Which I get to keep from the squishies.

Wipe.

The result of the wtf round was that even though the hunter's pet pulled the aggro, it was tank who's fault the wipe was. Round two. The hunter enters the instance and his pet aggroes immedieately. Tanks fault.

I quit the group there.

Tanks are always to blame. Is it any wonder there are no tanks to run instances out of the guild runs?

Guild run: good clean run with everyone looking for their own performance and how to proceed best. No name calling, no bickering, all good advice and learning for the newcomer. And in 5-mans, both normal and heroic, a clean pass even with a slacker like me. No wipes, no regrets.

Would you change that to the PUG abuse?

Casual social hardcore gaming dad

Had a discussion with my son the other day, and I came to the conclusion that he is a hardcore gamer. And after a short deliberation we came to the conclusion that so am I.

We play WoW (and every other MMO we've tried) to excel in the game: to best ourselves and our performance: to be better each time we set our foot on the pixelated countryside. We play to be good.

You can be casual and hardcore: the hardcore is the mentality of doing your best within the frames of the game's rules. Without breaking them, mind you BG AFK'ers.

Excel yourself every time you play. That's the tank way.

The hardcore way.

With a little help from my friends...

What an appropriate quote from The Beatles' to describe last evening's furious couple of hours.

Last evening was a special one for several reasons. Not only did Azariel pay a visit on the 'wussie side' and chat  with me (read: mock and abuse me), but everything seemed to click into place.

First of all, the fishing and cooking dailies were one shots both. I found a helmet from a quest chain I hadn't finished which alone helped my defense to come closer to my aim.

And I learned that the defense caps are a myth to normal 80's instances, providing you have a good group.

You see, I was minding my own business (dailies in Dalaran) when there was a question in guild channel, offering a gear up run in normal Trial of the Champions. Me, being the carefull and concerned bugger, volunteered to join if my presence wouldn't ruin the fun of the rest of the group.

During the meantime I made the Argent Tournament's dailies, learned a bit more about the jousting (which I hate even more) and finally we entered to the instance. My first 5-mans at lv80.

Trial of the Champions, normal.

Anyone who has been there knows that the beginning of first stage is... Jousting.

The end is tank and spank with emphasis on grouping the mobs and not standing in the muck. I've learned from Outlands already, that anything on the floor is bad and should be avoided. Except the dead mobs, of course, but anything else is BAD.

The second part is more grouping exercises and avoiding aoe and turning your back to the boss.

Third is the Black Knight with his army of exploding ghouls.

The group being that of our guild's finest I was lead from stage and encounter to another in a very civil manner. Needless to say, the first run was spectacular: everything worked lovely, we cleared stage after stage without a hitch and the crowd was cheering. In a way I was amazed how my lacking defense wasn't an issue at all, not to mention the fabulous drop I got. My first lv80 purple. (Don't ask me now what it was, I'm relishing the moment, not looking at the Armoury!)

After a successful run we decided to do another. The other players had their alts (or alt's alt or something) and it was obvious they really knew how the encounter works and all. Like I've commented at some point, it's a pleasure to run with a group of professionals: the mentality strikes at all levels and makes you perform yourself at higher level.

The second run wasn't as easy, and we wiped a couple of times. This is where the professional, achiever mentality shows even more: there was no calling on who lacked and who sucked. Instead, everyone more or less analyzed their own performance and what they did wrong THEMSELF and tried to find the reason WHY the wipe happened. And adapted on the next run.

Needless to say, we cleared the instance with flying colours, I was very happy camper and owned two shining pieces of purple gear. I was pretty pleased on my first run on a lv80 normal, even though my defense was 499 after the loot and 'miscolored' gem.

As the whole instance run was so smooth, the whole group agreed to do it again today. Provided all are at the computer: after all it's friday.

And guess what: by receiving this kind of welcome, I'm bound to the guild even stronger.

I'm there to help others when they need. Suck that, Gevlon, with your M&S speeches. This provides continuity to a healthy guild and makes it sure that the guild which is strong from inside will continue to exist beyond the 'next guildbreaker' expansion.

Now I'm hungry for more guild love. :P

Tanking dilemma

To tank in heroic lv80 5-mans, you should have 535 defence, 20k HP and 20k Armor. To be uncrittable -prepared to raid-, the defence should be 540. Only way, gearwise, to reach either is to run as many normal lv80 5-mans that you can get the gear composing these values. Or to spend a fortune in AH to purchase the gear to compose the stats. To which end running normal 5-mans would be ideal, as it would create both wealth and the possibility to get the gear as reward.

The only problem in a top heavy server is the fact, that though there is constant need for tanks and healers to the instances, the requests are always for heroics. Especially when the mode isn't informed in the LFM announcement.

I feel 'gear gimped' as I cannot even participate.

Oh joy.