The Jump To Heroics

Ah, heroic dungeons. Every time I level up a new character nowadays, one of the things I look forward to is getting them into heroic runs, both because the loot is better, and the challenge is. . . well, existant. Honestly, whenever I run a nonheroic instance, even on a character who isn't decked out in blues and purples yet, I look forward to one of two equally unappealing outcomes: The group is good, and the instance is a snorefest, or the group is BAD, and the instance run makes me want to tear my hair out.

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago (yeah, I miss posting 5 times a day too), Jasminne hit the big 7-0. And much to my surprise, it was only a couple of days until she found herself decked out in blues from doing a few select quests, grinding some rep, and buying some BoEs from the Auction House. I found myself going through the nonheroic instance loot lists, and thinking to myself "Wow, these are extremely minor upgrades, at best". And yet, I look at my stats and cringe: 12k health, 12.5k armor, 45% avoidance. . . the only decent stat I have is my spelldamage! Great, I'm a tank who can hold aggro just fine, until I die to a trio of lucky 4k hits. Hence my current dilemma: I'm stuck in-between normal instances and heroics!

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So what is a tank to do, faced with such abysmal stats? Well, fortunately this isn't the first time I've faced this dilemma, but since Surania was in this situation well over a year ago, I had forgotten about it. Not to mention that at the time Surania was first hitting heroics, it was the norm to struggle running them. Heck, I can remember the excitement I felt the first time I got asked to tank a run for what was THE raiding guild on the server at the time, and how amazed I was at how few wipes we experienced by the time we finally killed. . . Quagmirran!

Alas, these days most people are used to Kara/PvP geared epic tanks with 16k+ health and tons of avoidance and mitigation. Nobody wants the scrub who just got his first set of blues to tank. Heck, if I were a healer/DPS, *I* wouldn't want me to tank particularly! But like I said, to get the gear I really need to run heroics the way people are accustomed to running them, I have to get the gear FROM those heroics. But how?

Well, your first option is to just keep chugging away at those nonheroic runs, using them to grind reputation with various factions for their rewards. But if your server is like mine, you'll never get enough Shadow Lab runs to buy that sweet spelldamage mace, or Tempest Keep runs for that lovely shield, or Steam Vault runs for the ever-so-sexy hammer. Grinding rep with the Aldor/Scryers for your shoulder enchant, or the Shattered Sun for an epic necklace and shield, is a reasonable pursuit, but many factions are likely to be out of reach (and anyhow those faction grinds are obnoxiously long). So, back to the drawing board. . .

New approach. First of all (and this applies at all points in your WoW career), know what the hell you're doing. I've always said that Skill > Spec > Gear, and even in a situation like this, where your gear is a major limiting factor, I hold that to be true. Skill can make up for a lot of blue gear, especially when it comes to knowing those fun little tricks to things like Dash Pulling or rezzing people while tanking. For example, last night Jasminne tanked heroic Slave Pens. An easy instance for most of us, but let me tell you that she was just BARELY staying vertical. And one of the biggest saving graces for me was being able to use my bubble, even while tanking (Note: if you are a tank, you should have a macro set up for divine shield that both casts DS and /cancelaura's it. Hit it once to put up the bubble, hit again to drop it). My bubble saved my butt many times, including a couple times I bubbled to give the healer time to bring my health back up, then broke bubble just before the mobs got to said healer and tossed my shield at them to regain their attention, and the time I dumped Rokmar on the poor enhancement shaman long enough to get a heal and drop the debuff (poor guy got hit for 95% of his health, bet he's glad for every point of stam his gear had!)

Secondly (and this applies doubly to Paladins), you have to remember your crowd control. Yes, this coming from the guy who does 30 minute Heroic Shattered Halls runs with no CC for fun. The fact is, if you dont have the gear to survive getting beaten on by half a dozen heroic mobs at a time, you need to not be GETTING hit by half a dozen mobs at a time. I think that as Jasminne I surprise people when I start putting up marks for sap, trap, and sheep on pulls, but I know that if I try to, for example, tank all 4 Bogstroks at once, I'm going to faceplant real quick. Don't be afraid to ask for unusual forms of crowd control, either. I'm sure that rogue will be glad to toss stuns on one of the mobs, and I know of at least one frost mage who revels in frost kiting mobs around SH just because.

Third, don't be afraid to go to Karazhan. No, you wont have the gear to maintank Malchezaar and Nightbane, but if you're in a decent set of blues, even if you're like me and have yet to reach crush immunity, you should do just fine as an offtank. Most of the trash in there is actually MORE survivable than your average heroic pull, and you probably have 2-3 healers there instead of just one (albeit one will be working on keeping the MT up as well). Of course, if your guild doesn't have Karazhan on farm yet, it may be a bit more challenging, but I assure you, it isn't going to be as bad as you think. And with 22 badges and at least 23 epics dropping on every full clear, you'll have TONS of opportunities to upgrade as you go!

As I mentioned, I'm still crushable. But thats not as big of a deal as you might think. Most of the fights in Karazhan aren't so bad that getting crushed occasionally will spell your doom. Crushing blows on Nightbane will mess you up, granted. Getting crushed by Netherspite can really hurt (though one of the effects of the red beam on that fight is actually a stacking defense boost, so you're not likely to stay crushable for long). And Prince Malchezaar in phase 2 will really mess up a crushable paladin. . . but at the same time, Prince Malchezaar has a huge Dual wield penalty during that phase, so even if you are for some reason trying to tank him in the crappy gear I have, you probably ARE crush immune during that phase. But I digress. . .

On a similar note, you could always try to get in to some heroic runs as an offtank, or respec to DPS or healing for them. You don't have to be the tank to pick up tanking gear, necessarily (though I would advise making sure the tank for said groups doesn't need what you're looking for). The fact of the matter is, its a lot easier to make a group run with undergeared DPS than it is to do the same run with undergeared tanks and (to a slightly lesser degree) healers. There's no shame in taking a slightly easier road to purple bliss. Just realize that running heroics as an undergeared tank can teach you a LOT about your class and capabilities!

And finally, some of us are lucky enough to be able to obtain crafted epics to tank in. There's a cloak thats great for starting bear tanks, some really nice plate bracers, a handful of beautiful belts (And if you happen to be a blacksmith or leatherworker, a set of matching boots), a couple of great stamina trinkets, etcetera. Sure, crafted epics will cost you a pretty penny, but these days its easy to do a week of dailies and buy a purple with the proceeds. And as an added bonus, some of those dailies have a chance of giving you a shiny Badge of Justice as a reward (Just don't count on getting them, so sayeth the paladin who has been at 34 badges for the last ten Supply Pouches, just one shy of a new cloak)

I leave you with one small piece of advice that I had to (re)learn the hard way. Remember that not all heroics are created equal. Slave Pens, Underbog, and the Mechanaar are good places to start earning epics. Shadow Labyrinth, Magisters' Terrace, and Black Morass are not. Continue reading 'The Jump To Heroics'

The Five Worst Raid Bosses Ever

So, I was fighting my number one least favorite boss in Karazhan last night on my hunter, and it got me thinking. . . I really dont want to write a blog article tomorrow. Uh, er, I mean how many bosses in WoW do I truly hate? As it turns out, there are quite a number of them, but most are from vanilla WoW (and are on the list due to the same mechanic, see #3 below). And so, I bring to you what are, in my opinion, the five (or so) worst boss encounters I've had the "pleasure" of fighting in WoW.

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#5: Hydross the Unstable
I actually kind of enjoyed this boss fight, at least once everybody in guild got the hang of it. My issue isn't with the actual mechanics and coreography of the fight, but with the gearing required to fight it. I remember, back when TBC was in beta, reading from one blue poster or another that WoW was going to veer away from the resist fight model, because collecting resist gear wasn't fun. And, for the MOST part, they came through. . . unless you're a tank.

Tanks, the people who already carry 2-3 sets of gear with them at all times (DPS gear, and healing gear for non-warriors), are forced to collect resistance sets still, and unlike Molten Core in days gone by, that gear is used for maybe 1-2 fights, making it even MORE annoying to collect. Sure, you dont need to outfit the whole raid these days, but why is it always the tanks that have to collect the extra set (Even when its a warlock on Leo, or a mage on Maulgar, its a tank, but at least its another class).

But even THAT isn't my beef with this fight. Fine, make me collect resist gear. . . but MAKE THE RESIST GEAR AVAILABLE! Druid resist tanking gear has three unifying attributes: Its green, purchased from the auction house, and has "of XXXXXX protection" as part of its name. Warriors and paladins get all sorts of crafted epic resist gear they can collect to make a set. Druids can wear the rings and neck pieces of . . . oh, wait, no we can't, because we NEED our rings and neck piece to maintain uncrittability, and crafted items like The Frozen Eye have zero defense on them. The only saving grace of this fight is that, as an offtank dealing with adds, you don't actually need the resist gear at all if you regular tanking gear is halfway decent (shhh, don't tell my raid leader *cough*)

#4: Prince Malchezaar
You face not Malchezaar alone, but the Random Number Generator he commands! I bet you all thought this was going to be the #1 spot, didn't you? Well, he's not. The fact of the matter is, this is NOT supposed to be a "stand in one spot and DPS" fight, its supposed to be a mobility fight. But alas, folks have found that its easier to park your tank against a wall, your ranged folks in a safe nook, and take your chances with the RNG instead. And a boss fight whose success or failure is based more on the roll of a die than on the skill of the raiders is bad design (which should be corrected by shoring up those "safe spots" IMO, making the fight harder, but I think more fun once people got used to it).

For many people, Malchezaar is right up there on the list of most hated mobs, because he seems to always drop those two infernals that totally mess up the magical "Stand and deliver" positioning. But I've had some excellent experiences where exactly that happened, but I had a crack team with me, and we moved to a new position, and kept moving throughout the fight (IE: We were forced to do the fight the right way). It helps that I have feral charge to reset my position after shadow novas, I'll admit, but hey, I dont mind having an occasional raid fight that doesn't heavily favor warrior tanks *snerk*.

#3: Lucifron
Lucy is just one of many in a long line of "decurse spam" fights that I find absolutely retarded. A boss that casts a nasty debuff is perfectly fine. . . a boss that casts that nasty debuff on all 40 members of a raid, every 20 seconds, is just annoying. These fights might have been enjoyable for those who didn't have any sort of cleansing ability, but for the rest of us, it was an annoying, repetitive chore.

#2: Shazzrah
Shazz was another one of those spam decurse fights, but with an extra delight that puts him head and shoulders above the rest. You see, he liked spamming this massive arcane explosion that would absolutely obliterate anyone other than the tank trying to be in melee range of him. So everybody, including the rogues and all the warriors but the main tank, would set up for the fight by making a big semicircle around a parked imp at max range. And the only reason anyone ever went inside that circle was because they were the tank, or they were bringing Shaz back to the tank after he randomly teleported to them.

For those of you who think fights like Maulgar and Prince are melee unfriendly, try spending an entire fight as a warrior/rogue shooting arrows, bullets, and throwing daggers at a boss. Alas, it could be worse. . . you could be decursing!

#1: Big Bad Wolf
Yeah, go ahead and laugh. I HATE BBW (No, not THOSE BBW *cough*). Hate him with a passion. Supposedly, you're supposed to be able to keep ahead of him when turned into Little Red Riding Hood by running around the stage scenery in a tight circle, as he's supposed to get hung up on the stuff. I've watched people do it successfully. I've done the same exact damn thing they did. I've died every time I don the hood.

Whats really annoying, though, is that he seems to have this annoying tendency to make the tank big bad the moment he's pulled. And since the tank has no armor, he can't just stand there and build threat, he has to run away too, making sure that, at the very least, the healers are above his threat and will get beaten to a pulp the minute he breaks out. Or he picks on all of the healers, systematically splattering them all (I think I've seen a healer survive it once, but most of the time they seem to be too focused on health bars to notice the raid warnings and such).

When I first went to Karazhan, I was told we were lucky, because our first couple of Opera events were the Wolf, and he was the "easiest" of the opera events. Frankly, I'll take a harder event that kills me because I made mistakes over an "easy" event that splatters me just because I cant get a mob to bug out on scenery. Continue reading 'The Five Worst Raid Bosses Ever'

Sum Bare R 4 MOONFARE?!?!

For most tanking classes, pulling is a rather straightforward affair. Warriors can fire their sidearm of choice at a group to get their attention. Paladins can channel the essence of Captain America/Xena, Warrior Princess. Both also have the option to run up to the mobs to initiate combat (albeit warriors get to do so a little bit faster). Druids, on the other hand, have options. Lots, and lots, and lots of options. Starfire, moonfire, wrath, hurricaine, faerie fire, feral charge, body pulling, tossing a sacrificial gnome, all are options in our arsenal (well, except for the gnome).

All of our options have distinct advantages and disadvantages, but alas, spellcasting is not the strong suit of most of our feral brethren. And while, generally speaking, pulling is only a small part of our job, its still part of what we do, so those of us obsessed enough with our class to, say, read blogs on a daily basis (let alone write them *cough*) should really know what we're doing when we decide to call down orbital lazer fire from space.

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First of all, lets meet our arsenal. Lets just go ahead and assume we have 0 bonus damage and 0% chance to crit, because thats basically what we should have in tanking gear:

Starfire: That would be the big laser with the long cast. Averages 588 damage for 370 mana. 3.5 second cast. 168 DPS, 1.59 DPM


Wrath: The big ball of nature's . . . well, wrath. Averages 405 damage for 255 mana. 2 second cast. 202.5 DPS, 1.59 DPM


Moonfire: The little lazer that burns for hours. . . or at least 12 seconds. With DoT, averages 931 damage for 495 mana. 1.5 second global cooldown, instant cast. 620.7 Damage Per Second of effective cast time, 1.88 DPM.


Hurricane: Why hit one when you can hit 'em all? 206 DPS for 10 seconds on all mobs under it. 1905 mana.


Faerie Fire (Feral): Proof that druids now how to cast fire spells. Or not. Free cast in forms, generates just enough threat to get the attention of your enemies.


One of the first things you might notice is that, without any spelldamage gear, Wrath is just as efficient as, and has higher DPS than, Starfire. Starfire has the advantage of being a bigger single hit, though, something that will come into play later, and make Starfire a favorite choice of this bear.

Second, Moonfire is actually more efficient, and has much higher DPS, than either of our straight nukes. Note, however, that this is only true if you use moonfire only once per target. Multiple casts on the same target wont stack the DoT portion, which is 2/3 of the actual damage.

Third, hurricane kicks the crap out of everything else on pulls of 3 or more, though its damage is more spread out. It does, however, eat a signifigant chunk of your mana, especially if coupled with barkskin.

Now that we've met the players, lets look at one of the game rules that you may know about, but might not have considered when it comes to pulling groups to your furry behind: The Global Cooldown *cue ominous sound effects*. For those who don't know, the GCD is a game mechanic which makes it impossible to start casting a spell if you have started another spell within the last 1.5 seconds (or 1 second for energy users). This is why spamming your moonfire key wont bring down an endless rain of lasers, and why resto druids don't maintain triple-stack lifeblooms on 25 people at a time.

Now, you may have noticed one tricky fact about the GCD. Unlike the five-second rule for mana regeneration (whose namesake 5 second timer starts counting whenever a spellcast is completed), the global cooldown timer starts ticking the moment you START casting. Thats why it tends to really only be noticable when casting instant spells, such as moonfire or lifebloom, and not on casted spells like Starfire or Wrath (save for balance-specced druids and their occasional 1-second Wrath cast).

Why is the GCD stuff important? Well, at first glance, it may look like Starfire and Wrath are pretty pointless to use if you only want to get a little threat on as many mobs as possible. Starfire looks especially worthless here, until you consider the cooldown. Lets say we open our pull sequence with a moonfire, since its the highest DPS/DPM spell in our arsenal. Great, you've effectively applied about 931 damage/threat to a target with your pull. However, you have also just engaged the global cooldown, and must wait 1.5 seconds before performing another action, such as firing another moonfire or shifting to bear form. If you instead open with a Starfire, the global cooldown expires 2 seconds BEFORE that initial burst of aggro, meaning the moment Starfire's 588 damage/threat goes off, alerting the mobs to your presence, you're able to follow it up with another spell immediately (possibly even that same moonfire you would have pulled with before this paragraph). This is, as far as I'm concerned, the best (and only) way to use Starfire as a bear tank, the initial, free (since really, mana doesn't matter as long as we have enough to shift) shot.

Small Group Pulls:

So, lets say you come to the pull just after the first boss in Sethekk Halls: 2 melee mobs. Not really worth busting out hurricane here, best to stick with the single-target damage. How do we want to pull them? Well, lets assume that once our mobs are pulled, we have 3.5 seconds before they're in our face smacking us on the head. Lets also assume we want the bulk of the threat on our primary kill target, because our DPSers have a tendency to jump the gun a bit, especially after seeing a bunch of lasers rain down on the mobs' heads. Standing at max range, we target the primary mob and begin to cast Starfire. Then, with starfire still casting, we switch targets to the secondary mob, and hover our mouse over the primary mob. The moment starfire casts (0 seconds after the pull starts), we fire off a moonfire (which immediately fires, since the GCD expired two seconds ago) on our secondary target, as that was the mob we had targeted, and then immediately click on the primary target again to regain focus. As soon as the global cooldown from that cast expires (1.5 seconds after the pull starts), we moonfire again, this time hitting our primary target. And when THAT cooldown expires (3.0 seconds after the pull starts), we shift to bear form to prepare for taking our first hit 0.5 seconds later. By pulling in this way, we have built up over 1500 initial threat on our primary target (though it will be another 10 seconds before the full effect of the moonfire has been felt) and nearly 1000 threat on our secondary target (again, once moonfire takes full effect).

Two things to note here: While waiting for global cooldowns, you can extend the time it takes for your foes to reach you by either backing up, or turning and strafing/running away from them. I usually just back up to maintain visual on the mobs. Second, even though you're building up some nice initial threat, DPS can NOT immediately lay into the mobs. It would not be hard at all for someone to out-aggro you by the time the mobs got there, especially in your caster-stat-free gear. This is merely an extra buffer for your DPSers to make them safer to go all out once you get a mangle and some swipes into the mobs, and some leeway for the healer to keep you up should your initial attacks all miss.

Now, lets say you had a little more time than that to build threat. This is a rare occasion where wrath might be a good pulling option. Lets say you now have 4 seconds, and can extend that time to 5.5 by backing up during global cooldowns on 2 moonfires (obviously we're assuming a good bit of foreknowledge regarding the particular mobs here). If you're feeling daring, and really want to build some threat on your primary target (or just want to put up some better numbers on the damage meter), try this on for size: Starfire on the primary target to open. When the starfire goes off (0s), start casting a wrath on it, and switch to the secondary target. When the wrath goes off (2s), starfire, switch targets back to the primary target, and start backing away. When the global cooldown is up (3.5s), moonfire again, this time hitting the primary target with it, and keep backing up. Once you're out of that GCD (5s), its time to shift to bear and lay into them both when they reach you half a second later. Same amount of threat on your secondary target, but another 400 threat and damage on your primary.

Large Group Pulls:

Now that we've absolutely obliterated that pull, lets move a bit deeper into the instance. Eventually, you go upstairs, kill off a wind serpent and 2 guards, and are then faced with the biggest pull of the instance: 10 hawks. Now, I know as well as the next guy that these guys are a joke, but lets pretend this is serious business, and we absolutely need to maintain aggro on all ten while not getting hit by any of them outside of bear form. Now, your first reaction to this pull is probably to pull out hurricane, center it over the birds, and fire. However, we want to build maximum threat here, so we're going to do this a little differently. First of all, we're going to target the closest bird and get to maximum starfire range. Then, we're going to start casting starfire, since we already noted that starfire is essentially a freebie when looking at a max-threat pull. Then, while starfire is casting, we are going to click hurricane and get it targeted (yes, you can be targeting it while another spell is casting, aren't you glad starfire takes so long now?). But we're not going to try to center the hurricane over the mobs. Instead, we want to drop it closer to us, hitting the area in between ourself and our targets.

Why target hurricane like this? Well, the answer is simple. If you center it over your targets, those targets only have to pass through part of the hurricane to get to you. If you drop it in between you and them, however, they have to travel the full width of the spell to approach you, and thus spend much more time getting bolts dropped on their heads. More bolts = more threat. Just make sure there is a little distance between you and the near edge of the hurricane so you have a chance to switch to bear form before the mobs start hitting you.

Ok, now, lets get real here. Those birds are a joke, and as long as they get heals, a mage could "tank" them with little problem. So, instead of worrying about getting hit, lets just do as much damage as we can to them. This time, we'll still start with a starfire, but instead of targeting hurricane while its casting, we get ready to run toward them. Once starfire goes off, cast barkskin, and run toward the group. Then, once you reach the mobs, drop that hurricane right at your feet and enjoy the rain of numbers. Just be sure to watch your health, in case the healer cant keep up with the damage you're taking. Bear tank DPS at its finest, my friends.

At this point, I've shared with you what I consider the major tricks a druid can use to build maximum threat on a pull: Always start with a Starfire (unless you cant due to aggro range or arcane immunity). When building threat on multiple enemies, either hit as many of them as possible with moonfire, or drop a hurricane where they have to walk through the whole thing before getting to you. If you need to build as much threat as possible on a single mob before it gets to you, spam wrath, and use moonfire as your last spell before going to bear (takes less time than the wrath, and allows you to back away while waiting for GCD). Additionally, you can do things such as precasting HoTs on yourself, though this will really only give your healer a little more time before they have to start healing you, especially since HoTs cast outside of combat apparently generate no threat (at least thats what I hear, I have never actually tested this, maybe I'll do that tonight).

But, there's one more spell you can pull with. . . Faerie Fire. Specifically Feral Faerie Fire. Practically no threat, but it will bring the mobs to you. And frankly, its what I use for 90% or more of the pulls I make. While FFF isn't going to build you any sort of threat cushion, it has some great advantages. First of all, theres no risk of a sudden lagspike leaving you stuck in caster form with mobs beating on you. Second, once the mob you hit with it gets to you, you can open up with a slightly stronger Maul/Mangle combo because of the mob's reduced armor. Third, if you have a lot of rage built up from the previous pull, you dont have to lose it by shifting out of form. And fourth . . .

You really shouldn't need the extra threat from all those silly balance spells in the first place. Yes, thats right, while optimizing your pull sequence is a fun little exercize in theorycraft, it is also by and large unnecessary, despite what I said about knowing how to call down the lazers at the start of this post.

There are only two reasons to seriously use your non-FFF spells for pulling in general: Polymorph/Seduce, and huge pulls like those 10 birds, or the big pulls in Shattered Halls. The former case, the cast time on Starfire gives your mage/warlock the chance to coordinate with you on the pull. I shed a tear of joy when a mage polymorphs his target a split second after my starfire goes off, because I know I wont have to worry about that sheep straying anywhere near my swipe killzone. And my healers shed a tear of joy when I hit a 7-mob pull with 3 ticks of Hurricane, because they know that 600x7=4,200 damage I just did to the mobs means their first heal on me isn't going to send 4-6 mobs barreling down on them.

Oh, and there is one other reason to put effort into your pulls. If you're like me, and have run pretty much every heroic a dozen times, and at least that many karazhan clears, unloading a bunch of flashy spells into mobs on a pull can be a way to keep from getting bored. Heck, I once moonfired all 6 mobs of a pull while bringing them all back to the second boss' room in heroic Shattered halls for fun (and because I thought the hunter that was with me might be amused by the fact a druid tank was jump-shotting with moonfire in a heroic. Jumpshots: they're not just for hunters any more!) Continue reading 'Sum Bare R 4 MOONFARE?!?!'

Chaotic Order and Orderly Chaos

So, now that I have some readers, I'd like to pose a question that I found myself pondering after reading Yashima Plays a couple days ago: What makes an instance run fun to you? In particular, do you prefer a nice, controlled, safe run, or do you thrive in the chaos that tends to breed in PuG runs (and Prophecy heroic runs when we're bored)?

I personally really enjoy chaos, at least when I'm tanking. "Three mob pull? Put the Crowd Control away, silly! Five mobs? Meh, drop a trap at the healer's feet in case one gets away. A whole busload?? Stack some extra heals on me, my friends, its time for a barkskin/hurricaine kamikaze pull! Yes, I know this is a heroic, whats your point?" I think I do that partially because I trust my own ability to hold aggro over my allies' ability to keep mobs under control (Even my guildies, some days the RNG just hates you). And I'm sure in the back of my mind somewhere I like to relive the old days, when swipe and maul put out ENORMOUS amounts of threat and I could tank huge groups with out breaking a sweat.

Ultimately, though, what I really get out of pushing the envelope is a chance to hone my skills. When a mob breaks away from the pack to eat the healer, I have a feral charge/growl combo go off before it gets halfway to its destination (Of course, half of the time I then notice the ice trap the mob was wandering to, as the hunter pumped half a ton of lead into that mob to get it there). My reaction time is a little slower when one of the melee DPS starts to drop, either due to not attacking the right target or overusing multi-target attacks. It takes me a moment to tab through all of the targets, find the one that doesn't have me in the target-of-target frame, hit a growl-mangle combo, and tab back to the primary target. And if I'm running with guildmates, it takes me even longer, as I tend to relax and not pay too much attention to the DPSers when I know that they know what they're doing.

On the rare occasions that I'm healing, though, I tend to like a more controlled environment (Unless the tank is a paladin). Most warriors and druids just aren't able to hold more than 2-3 mobs without having at least one or two run off for the healer. If they can keep the mobs off of me, by all means AoE tank, but otherwise, I'll take all the cc I can get, my cyclone will only keep me alive through so much. And if I'm DPSing . . . do whatever the heck you want, especially since if you lose some mobs, I'm just a couple clicks away from becoming an offtank. Alas, I dont spend much time in the DPS role, though thats just fine by me.

Kirari is not a big proponent of crowd control. I mean, I'm fine with it if the hunter wants to trap, or the mage wants to sheep, doesn't hurt my time any. Just don't make me Seduce. Most annoying crowd control EVER. In fact, if you really want me to perform in a CC role, give me something I can fear kite behind the group, thats actually kinda fun! And dont get me wrong, I *CAN* keep a mob seduced just fine, but it absolutely hammers my ability to actually put out damage, since even as an affliction 'lock, a major portion of my DPS comes from shadowbolt spam.

Chalith and Kibler, however, absolutely LOVE performing crowd-control roles. Heck, mark up two mobs for Kibler, he'll lock 'em both down now that double trapping is possible again, at least for the first 36 seconds of the fight (Go go Wyvern Sting!). Actually, I get sorta bummed when the tank for a group I'm running on the hunter is being tanked by a paladin, as it kind of negates the strengths of my trap-focused survival build.

Jasminne, obviously, doesn't bother with CC. Consecrate will keep that mob off of the healer just fine, thanks, rather have everything on me for more reckoning procs! Do I feel bad when she tanks an instance AND tops the DPS charts? Well. . . no, not really *evilgrin*

So, how about you folks? Chaos or Order?
Continue reading 'Chaotic Order and Orderly Chaos'

Looking for Group == Looking for Repair Bills

To your right, you will see the makings of your average. . . or perhaps even ABOVE average, PuG run on Steamwheedle Cartel. I'm pretty sure the guy on the left is a 20/21/20 Druid, and the one on the right is a mage wearing a set of matched gray clothes. Toss in a Shaman who swears he can tank everything, A warlock who cant stop tossing Seed of Crowd-Control-Breaking, and just for the sake of headaches, I'll throw myself in there on my hunter. Oh, wait, actually, I think I had that exact group last thursday.

It amazes me how BAD people can be at playing their class, it really does. Yesterday I, on my trap-focused (Read: Not DPS optimized) hunter, Kibler, I ran a regular mechanaar and ended up doing over 48% of the total damage for the group. I wish I had taken a screenshot of the SWStats screen at the end. The TANK did nearly 20%. I think our other DPSers could be summed up in one brilliant comment by the warlock in the group: "I was wanding because I want to conserve my mana".

Dear Warlock,

It has recently come to the attention of the Shadow Council of Dalaran that you are in dire need of De-noobification. In order to rectify your current situation, we must now insist that you follow one of two pre-selected protocols:

1) Visit your local Warlock Training Officer (WTO) and attend the 5-second training course on Life Tap. Upon conclusion of this training, please place your new Life Tap button in a convenient place on your hotbar, and learn to love it.

2) Send the aforementioned WTO your Shadow Council membership card and badge in the mail (or, if desired, we also accept Imp Deliveries). Upon surrender of your membership paraphernalia, please log out, delete your character, and cancel your World of Warcraft account.

We apologize for this inconvenience, however, we cant afford to have incompetent warlocks representing us.


Twistedly Yours,
The DSC

Its more than just incompetence on the server, though (And dont get me wrong, there are also plenty of COMPETENT players on the server, but they're rare to find outside of guild runs). My biggest beef as of late is the insane lack of TANKS on our server. Any tanks, even the incompetent ones. I estimate I've sat on the LFG channel for 60 hours since Kibler hit 70. In that time, I've successfully run TWO instance runs. I've gotten probably 20 groups, but all of them end up the same:

[4. LookingForGroup] [Kibler]: LF1M Tank for _______, PST

Now, I blame this partially on Blizzard for changing class balance every time they change group size (20% tanks for 5-man and 10-man instances, but only 8-12% tanks in 25-man raids). But what really boggles my mind is that people dont try to fill in the need. Hell, even the other FERAL druids wont tank on this server, they all claim "Oh, I'm cat specced, I cant tank". Bull shit, cat spec hasn't existed since 1.12, I should know, I was there as a Bear-spec (11/33/7, or as I called it "1 1337 Bear Tank"). All of the paladins on the server are Holy, most of the druids are Resto (Amazingly, no shortage of healers for PuGs. . . just for Raids), and all of the warriors are Arms/Fury. But alas, as I already mentioned, PuGgers are idiots on this server, and thus probably cant wrap their brains around the idea of respeccing in order to gear up faster. So, we all sit in LFG, waiting to jump on some poor, unsuspecting tank that wanders in.

Actually, a couple days ago, I decided to be just that sucker on Surania, after giving up all hope of ever getting a group on Kibler. And doing so made me realize why I never noticed the poor PuG quality before: A good tank can cancel out a LOT of bad play by the rest of the group. My favorite moment from that day was at Warlord Kalithresh in The Steamvault (nonheroic). I had been tanking the instance in my DPS gear (In which I still have 25k armor, 12k health, and my dodge jumps up to about 50% unbuffed), but decided to switch to my tanking gear for the last fight. Turns out it was the best decision I ever made, the DPS failed to kill the first fishtank in time, causing the boss to enrage early in the fight. Which wouldnt have been a problem, except I guess the healer had gotten bored and decided to DPS the boss a bit. . . while he had his spellshield up. . . at the same time. Oh, look, a big red boss, and there's an angel in the corner over there.

Amazingly enough, I managed to keep myself vertical long enough for us to kill off the second fishtank and the boss. I owe my life to a combination of BearVasion,Frenzied Regeneration (One of the few times I think it actually made a difference), Improved LotP procs, and everybody's favorite toy from the 2.3 patch, my potion/CCF macro. I think I ended the fight with about 1.5k health, and about 4 amazed group members. That was a fight I wont forget for a long time, I think, ranks right up there with the time I tanked Magmadar in my MC healing set (After both warrior tanks went down) way back when.

The kicker? Despite the headaches they cause, I still recommend EVERYBODY, regardless of gear and experience level, go on a PuG run at least once a month. PuGs offer a unique challenge, especially the bad ones. They make you think about what you can do to survive, or at least minimize your losses, when faced with an unexpected challenge. The skills you learn in PuGs are the skills you use in fights like Prince Malchezaar, or High King Maulgar, how to deal with it when the shit hits the fan and your backs are up against a wall. And if you have these skills, you can pull off some incredible saves.
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