So yeah, some dude at that other blog did a tanking meme, so I decided to be no worse. Only problem is I have no friends to tag or anything, so I'm a dead end when it comes to memes. Without further ado:
What is your primary tanking environment? (i.e. raids, pvp, 5 mans)
As with my healing, I tend to jump in to fill spots in raid 10 mans or play the lead part in PuG's led by me.
What is your favorite tanking spell for your class and why?
Avenger's shield. Ranged, tons of damage, slows, silences, AND bounces to two targets after the first one? Sign. Me. THE. FUCK. UP!
What tanking spell do you use least for your class and why?
I'm tempted to say taunts, since people rarely rip aggro off me, but that's true for most tanks (I hope) so I'd have to say... Hands. They are so situational and there's usually an easier solution than retargeting to cast (I don't think I've ever saved a raid by using a hand, to be honest, so that includes simply ignoring the situation).
What do you feel is the biggest strength of your tanking class and why?
Right now, we have extremely good survivability and Effective Health coupled with good DPS (and threat, as paladin threat largely is our DPS * Righteous Fury modifier), all in one easily played package.
What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your tanking class and why?
We are not as flexible as a warrior tank or druid but this is largely a quality of life issue. We rely on mana which sometimes is scarce (fight transitions will make Divine Plea wear off coupled with no healing to take advantage of Spiritual Attunement) and we can get silenced, but as long as we have mana for one ability (even our lowest threat moves) our snap threat is good enough that it won't be a problem.
In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best tanking assignment for you?
Tanking a big-ass sucker of a boss that hits hard.
What tanking class do you enjoy tanking with most and why?
I'm well complimented by a druid or warrior that can fill the gaps in my toolbox. For the other meaning of this question, I enjoy tanking on my warrior a lot more than I enjoy it on my paladin, because of the aformentioned flexibility.
What tanking class do you enjoy tanking with least and why?
My paladin, easily. Stuck in a rotation, just one stun with a long CD, pretty lame debuffs and the fact that it's flavour of the month.
What is your worst habit as a tank?
Letting people die. Sure, they may deserve it, but there's nothing stopping me from being nice. I also tend to be pretty reckless, but I prefer wiping every now and then to meticolously planning each pull before going ahead and pressing that Hand of Reckoning + Avenger's shield macro. Also, surviving a big oshit pull after using a few tricks is a pretty neat feeling.
What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while tanking?
Slow people. I prefer things quick, and as we say in Swedish, "snappy". People at 60% who demand a mana break in a heroic will tick me the fuck off big time. If the healer is good to go, so is the rest of the group.
Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other tanks?
Nope. We are actually way too good. Simplicity of play and huge EH are too big advantages, and I hope Blizzard fixes these in Icecrown without either making all tanks bland copies of each other or simply nerfing us.
What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a tank?
I mostly just use Recount to watch my DPS contribution. I've never been in a situation where survivability analysis has been important.
What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your class?
Paladins are not off tanks! We may AoE tank pretty well and easily (our normal rotation contains two abilities that affect 3/all targets around us, and one that affects all targets that are hitting at us) but our largest advantage is our silly threat and survivability against the ilks of hard hitting bosses like Steelbreaker.
What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new tanks of your class to learn?
Exactly how everything fits together. Divine Plea, the 9696 rotation and in what order to use abilities when grabbing multiple mobs just to name a few. Paladin tanking is easy though, almost way too easy.
Effective Health or Avoidance and why?
EH if I had to choose. The stuff that will kill you at current gear and content levels is big, unavoidable hits (either through stuns or magic damage) and there is only one solution to handling those situations better: More stamina.
What tanking class do you feel you understand least?
Death Knights. I have a general antipathy against the class so I haven't rolled one, even though I said I might one day if only for the lore things in the starting area. Their resource managment and different strikes are alien to me, but I know they can move stuff with Death Grip and that's what's important.
What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in tanking?
Aloft and Tidy Plates for keeping track of mobs and who they are targeting. Omen obviously, and Satrina's buff frames to help me track when Divine Plea has run out and similar things. Grid setup mostly to display who has aggro so that I can use my Righteous defence macro.
I have a Righteous defence mouseover macro, and a pulling macro (Hand of Reckoning + Avenger's shield) but that's pretty much it.
Do you strive primarily for balance between your tanking stats, or do you stack some much higher than others, and why?
A healthy mix currently. I'm not tanking any bleeding edge content so I'm entertaining myself juggling dodge and parry and activating socket bonuses (almost regardless) rather than straight HP stacking, mostly because simply going for Stam feels boring. I don't practise what I preach in this regard, but I can tank anything my guild currently can see without any trouble what so ever, so I don't see a reason to go even further up Health Pool Lane.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Monday, November 2, 2009
The art of Shaman healing
No, not really. This is some kind of non-meme (OR IS IT DUNDUN) I'm doing so I don't have to type a proper post.
What is the name, class, and spec of your primary healer?
Togtok, restoration shaman.
What is your primary group healing environment? (i.e. raids, pvp, 5 mans)
I tend to jump in the occasional guild ten man raid every now and then. I also run VoA from time to time.
What is your favorite healing spell for your class and why?
Riptide - it's instant, it's a HoT, and it triggers Tidal waves which is something I simply want to have up at all times. If I'm not rolling on the tank, I'm using it to snipe heal the raid. Yes, when I see incoming Prayers of Healing too. Just to smack some overhealing on that pesky Holy priest who thinks he's all that.
What healing spell do you use least for your class and why?
Used to be Healing wave tied with Chain heal but has probably been turned into Chain heal. I KNOW, it's the signature spell and everything, but I only ever use it on the likes of fights like Kologarn and Loatheb, cause people will be sufficiently grouped up for it to be really awesome. Raid healing is better done with Lesser Healing wave (boosted by Tidal waves of course) cause you have a chance to reevaluate the raid after each cast to see if something else has happened. 2.5 seconds minus haste is a long time to wait for a heal that may or may not be completely wasted or bounce the wrong way or be overwritten by those pesky Holy priests and their Prayers of Healing. Coupled with Nature's swiftness on fights with heavy, randomly incoming damage it makes for a good emergency heal for people in the danger zone.
What do you feel is the biggest strength of your healing class and why?
Totems, Tidal waves and Bloodlust. We have similar throughput and longetivity compared to other classes, and we are versatile enough to work raid or tank healing as well as a druid or priest - we all need to spec differently to fully fill the two roles, but we can if we want to and have tools to do it with. What sets us apart is the totems that can be used to boost whatever setup, changed on the fly combined with the flexibility of Tidal Wave charges, and the overall überness of being able to give everyone a shitload of haste for 40 seconds.
What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your healing class and why?
I'd say more healing tools, but the only one I can think of that I miss is a healing version of the mana tide totem. The normal one, even glyphed, is a bit weak to really make a difference, but a big AoE pulsing heal every two minutes or something would be awesome for XT style fights or to get the raid up to full while letting the rest of the healers relax.
That being said, having an array of a few more abilities that are marginally or situationally useful would be more fun, but we have all the tools we need to do the job well.
In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best healing assignment for you?
Out of pure habit I will answer main tank healing. I know, take me out behind the chemical sheds and shoot me. It's dead boring, but man, do we do an awesome job of it. Our on-crit effect, Earth shield (which adds oomph to glyphed LHW's), critting Lessers and hasted Healings waves respectively from Tidal waves which is triggered by Riptide all make us really good tank healers - damage reduction, a HoT that heals when it's needed, a HoT that smooths damage, good mana preservation by using the different heals depending on what happens - normal damage, use Tidal waves charges for critting LHW's, spikey damage, use the charges for hasted, big healing bombs. The Riptide consumption aspect of Chain heal serves well in some fights as well, with the raid close to the tank. You basically refresh it on the tank most cooldowns anyway so it will always be there for you, replacing a normal tank heal with a critting CH with the benefit of added raid healing. Shammies have been pigeon holed into raid healing for too long. Half our arsenal isn't used while raid healing damnit!
What healing class do you enjoy healing with most and why?
A healing druid really shines with a shaman. I don't have to waste a Lesser wave on people who are only marginally hurt, and I can bring low raid members up with hasted Healing waves while a druid is off HoT:ing everyone up.
What healing class do you enjoy healing with least and why?
I reckon Holy priests, because they are so like us, with big vs small heals, a damage-smoothing HoT and damage reduction. We simply don't complete each other in the same way, but rather fill a lot of the same utility and versatility.
What is your worst habit as a healer?
I snipe heals. I'm horrible, I know, but I tend to be one of those healers that is the third or sixth healer (not necessarily in order) and watching five people doing the job you're supposed to help with just as well without you just isn't fun (not cause I'm not needed, but becuase I don't like standing around), so I snipe heals to keep myself interested.
What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while healing?
People who snipe heals, I mean seriously.
No, okay, I really don't know. People who stand in the fire piss me off regardless, but that's the closest I get as far as healing habits go.
Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other healers for PvE healing?
Yeah. We may lack a huge toolbox, bubble damage mitigation, everlasting mana or massive throughput, but we can do any healing job without trouble. If someone dies, in our most die-hard raid healing spec we still have powerful abilities to keep the tank up.
What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a healer?
I flip Skada over to healing done (to roughly monitor the other healer's performance) and when the fight is over, I check overhealing, compare my ratio to the others (I usually rank high, very rarely highest, on healing done and very low, often lowest, on overhealing done) and feel smugly superior.
What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your healing class?
That we are to be pigeonholed into healing the raid. Knee jerk reaction pigeonholing is disc priests and holydins for tank healing, holy priests, druids and shamans for raid healing, but I do not hesitate to stick a shaman on tank healing.
What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new healers of your class to learn?
Shamans are not only about Chain Heal. This in itself has a few implications, such as using Tidal Wave charges, when and where to use Riptide and the everlasting dilemma of using big or small heals. Keeping track of Tidal wave charges, Riptide tick time, Water and Earth shield charges and totem timers can be daunting but they're all alleviated through use of properly configured addons.
If someone were to try to evaluate your performance as a healer via recount, what sort of patterns would they see (i.e. lots of overhealing, low healing output, etc)?
I sort of answered this already. I generally have a good throughput in healing done (I'm an old DPS:er, if I finish a fight with more than 0 mana I have not used all my resources - I've had raid leaders ask if I'm DPS or healer after fights cause I'll be cruising at some 1.2-1.5k DPS from shooting lightning while bored) coupled with low overhealing.
Haste or Crit and why?
I prefer haste while raid healing and crit for tank healing, but I maintain a healthy mix in my "standard" gearset.
What healing class do you feel you understand least?
I think I have a fairly good grasp of all the healers, and if someone would lend me a healer of any class and point to all the important buttons I'd probably do a pretty good job with either of them, but I tend to raid lead and that takes understanding of all aspects of the game and good knowledge of what abilities each class has.
What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in healing?
I have Healing wave and Chain heal macroed with Nature's swiftness for oshit-style healing moments, and I have a Earth shield refresh macro, but some patch broke one of my addons and I haven't been arsed to fix it yet so for now, I'm refreshing manually. Pretty easy still seeing as I keep Riptides on the tank even while raid healing.
I use Grid for raid frames, and mainly look there while raid healing. While tank healing I use my large target frames but keep an eye on the raid every now and then (when I'm bored) and snipe heals. I use Satrina's buff frames to keep track of my Water shield and use my unit frame addon for tracking Earth shield on my focus target.
Do you strive primarily for balance between your healing stats, or do you stack some much higher than others, and why?
I'm not spoilt with many gear choices but I do have a few replacements pieces I can switch in if I want extra MP5, crit or haste depending on the fight or healing assignment. My overall set is pretty well balanced as regards to throughput and longetivity, however.
What is the name, class, and spec of your primary healer?
Togtok, restoration shaman.
What is your primary group healing environment? (i.e. raids, pvp, 5 mans)
I tend to jump in the occasional guild ten man raid every now and then. I also run VoA from time to time.
What is your favorite healing spell for your class and why?
Riptide - it's instant, it's a HoT, and it triggers Tidal waves which is something I simply want to have up at all times. If I'm not rolling on the tank, I'm using it to snipe heal the raid. Yes, when I see incoming Prayers of Healing too. Just to smack some overhealing on that pesky Holy priest who thinks he's all that.
What healing spell do you use least for your class and why?
Used to be Healing wave tied with Chain heal but has probably been turned into Chain heal. I KNOW, it's the signature spell and everything, but I only ever use it on the likes of fights like Kologarn and Loatheb, cause people will be sufficiently grouped up for it to be really awesome. Raid healing is better done with Lesser Healing wave (boosted by Tidal waves of course) cause you have a chance to reevaluate the raid after each cast to see if something else has happened. 2.5 seconds minus haste is a long time to wait for a heal that may or may not be completely wasted or bounce the wrong way or be overwritten by those pesky Holy priests and their Prayers of Healing. Coupled with Nature's swiftness on fights with heavy, randomly incoming damage it makes for a good emergency heal for people in the danger zone.
What do you feel is the biggest strength of your healing class and why?
Totems, Tidal waves and Bloodlust. We have similar throughput and longetivity compared to other classes, and we are versatile enough to work raid or tank healing as well as a druid or priest - we all need to spec differently to fully fill the two roles, but we can if we want to and have tools to do it with. What sets us apart is the totems that can be used to boost whatever setup, changed on the fly combined with the flexibility of Tidal Wave charges, and the overall überness of being able to give everyone a shitload of haste for 40 seconds.
What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your healing class and why?
I'd say more healing tools, but the only one I can think of that I miss is a healing version of the mana tide totem. The normal one, even glyphed, is a bit weak to really make a difference, but a big AoE pulsing heal every two minutes or something would be awesome for XT style fights or to get the raid up to full while letting the rest of the healers relax.
That being said, having an array of a few more abilities that are marginally or situationally useful would be more fun, but we have all the tools we need to do the job well.
In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best healing assignment for you?
Out of pure habit I will answer main tank healing. I know, take me out behind the chemical sheds and shoot me. It's dead boring, but man, do we do an awesome job of it. Our on-crit effect, Earth shield (which adds oomph to glyphed LHW's), critting Lessers and hasted Healings waves respectively from Tidal waves which is triggered by Riptide all make us really good tank healers - damage reduction, a HoT that heals when it's needed, a HoT that smooths damage, good mana preservation by using the different heals depending on what happens - normal damage, use Tidal waves charges for critting LHW's, spikey damage, use the charges for hasted, big healing bombs. The Riptide consumption aspect of Chain heal serves well in some fights as well, with the raid close to the tank. You basically refresh it on the tank most cooldowns anyway so it will always be there for you, replacing a normal tank heal with a critting CH with the benefit of added raid healing. Shammies have been pigeon holed into raid healing for too long. Half our arsenal isn't used while raid healing damnit!
What healing class do you enjoy healing with most and why?
A healing druid really shines with a shaman. I don't have to waste a Lesser wave on people who are only marginally hurt, and I can bring low raid members up with hasted Healing waves while a druid is off HoT:ing everyone up.
What healing class do you enjoy healing with least and why?
I reckon Holy priests, because they are so like us, with big vs small heals, a damage-smoothing HoT and damage reduction. We simply don't complete each other in the same way, but rather fill a lot of the same utility and versatility.
What is your worst habit as a healer?
I snipe heals. I'm horrible, I know, but I tend to be one of those healers that is the third or sixth healer (not necessarily in order) and watching five people doing the job you're supposed to help with just as well without you just isn't fun (not cause I'm not needed, but becuase I don't like standing around), so I snipe heals to keep myself interested.
What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while healing?
People who snipe heals, I mean seriously.
No, okay, I really don't know. People who stand in the fire piss me off regardless, but that's the closest I get as far as healing habits go.
Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other healers for PvE healing?
Yeah. We may lack a huge toolbox, bubble damage mitigation, everlasting mana or massive throughput, but we can do any healing job without trouble. If someone dies, in our most die-hard raid healing spec we still have powerful abilities to keep the tank up.
What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a healer?
I flip Skada over to healing done (to roughly monitor the other healer's performance) and when the fight is over, I check overhealing, compare my ratio to the others (I usually rank high, very rarely highest, on healing done and very low, often lowest, on overhealing done) and feel smugly superior.
What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your healing class?
That we are to be pigeonholed into healing the raid. Knee jerk reaction pigeonholing is disc priests and holydins for tank healing, holy priests, druids and shamans for raid healing, but I do not hesitate to stick a shaman on tank healing.
What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new healers of your class to learn?
Shamans are not only about Chain Heal. This in itself has a few implications, such as using Tidal Wave charges, when and where to use Riptide and the everlasting dilemma of using big or small heals. Keeping track of Tidal wave charges, Riptide tick time, Water and Earth shield charges and totem timers can be daunting but they're all alleviated through use of properly configured addons.
If someone were to try to evaluate your performance as a healer via recount, what sort of patterns would they see (i.e. lots of overhealing, low healing output, etc)?
I sort of answered this already. I generally have a good throughput in healing done (I'm an old DPS:er, if I finish a fight with more than 0 mana I have not used all my resources - I've had raid leaders ask if I'm DPS or healer after fights cause I'll be cruising at some 1.2-1.5k DPS from shooting lightning while bored) coupled with low overhealing.
Haste or Crit and why?
I prefer haste while raid healing and crit for tank healing, but I maintain a healthy mix in my "standard" gearset.
What healing class do you feel you understand least?
I think I have a fairly good grasp of all the healers, and if someone would lend me a healer of any class and point to all the important buttons I'd probably do a pretty good job with either of them, but I tend to raid lead and that takes understanding of all aspects of the game and good knowledge of what abilities each class has.
What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in healing?
I have Healing wave and Chain heal macroed with Nature's swiftness for oshit-style healing moments, and I have a Earth shield refresh macro, but some patch broke one of my addons and I haven't been arsed to fix it yet so for now, I'm refreshing manually. Pretty easy still seeing as I keep Riptides on the tank even while raid healing.
I use Grid for raid frames, and mainly look there while raid healing. While tank healing I use my large target frames but keep an eye on the raid every now and then (when I'm bored) and snipe heals. I use Satrina's buff frames to keep track of my Water shield and use my unit frame addon for tracking Earth shield on my focus target.
Do you strive primarily for balance between your healing stats, or do you stack some much higher than others, and why?
I'm not spoilt with many gear choices but I do have a few replacements pieces I can switch in if I want extra MP5, crit or haste depending on the fight or healing assignment. My overall set is pretty well balanced as regards to throughput and longetivity, however.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
The art of paladin tanking
6...9...6...9...6...9...6...9...6...9...6...9...6...9...6...9...
Is that really the truth to it? Not quite. The 9696 rotation is the staple of any paladin tanking, but to think that there isn't anything else is to be severely mistaken. First off there is a constant consideration about where to start your rotation depending on what type of pull it is, and where to start it off again after say, a stun. Then there's the consideration of which parts to drop to interweave Hammer of Wrath in execute range, and while I can answer such questions when it's calm, it's another piece of gum when you're in the middle of a boss fight. Luckily the 9696 rotation fits together quite seamlessly even when you introduce another 6-second cooldown, or even when you need to start weaving in interrupts (there's three, though only two use the GCD) every now and then. It's pretty much failsafe and idiotsafe - even if you just mash everything as soon as it comes off cooldown, you'll be looking at decent survivability and threat still.
This is a reason for what irks me the most about paladin tanks. They are currently the Flavour of the Month because of their advantage in simplicity in play and greater effective health compared to other tanks (oooh, and built in Guardian Spirit). We have a slightly smaller toolbox (maybe not smaller, but a hell of a lot more situational and therefor it rarely sees use), but if you get along just fine with or without a protection warrior (who, arguably, has the bigger toolbox) then what's the problem? Sure, it may be easier to bring someone who has two two-minute cooldowns to cycle for Vezax's Surges, but 1. They nerfed him to the ground 2. External cooldowns, on-use trinkets and AD work just fine as substitutions for own on-use. Plus, you can glyph to get a 20% damage reduction cooldown as well if you want to. 3. That doesn't mean it's an insurmountable hurdle to pass by bringing something else.
Another area where paladin tanks shine is utility. We have it coming out of our ears, with Kings buffs, extra crit and the splendid Divine Sacrifice just to mention a few. The previously mentioned smaller toolbox consists mainly of our Hands, with Hand of Sanctuary most probably being the most useful one (very helpful for warlocks, who put out ridiculous amounts of DPS and only have one threat reduction cooldown), but Hand of Protection on the other tank to clear stacks of Impale after Gormokk is dead to ease the healers' load during the first bit of the Jormungar duo is not to be sneezed at.
It may well be a case of grass being greener on the other side of the fence syndrome, but I sometimes regret not going with my warrior for my tanking alt. I may well level him to 80 before Cataclysm comes (but make no effort in gearing) so that I may reach my goal of 5 level 80's by the time Cata drops (it used to be 6, then Blizzard announced that they would make troll druids a reality, which just makes me all giddy inside - trolls are after all the epitome of shapeshifting and animal worship - ZG, ZF, and ZA all attest to this together with Gundrak. Also, trolls are my favorite race of the Warcraft universe and has been since Warcraft II). For now, I will use my paladin and have fun while doing it. She may lack the mobility and lockdown capabilities of warriors, but when it comes to eating those big hits, she's just incredible.
Is that really the truth to it? Not quite. The 9696 rotation is the staple of any paladin tanking, but to think that there isn't anything else is to be severely mistaken. First off there is a constant consideration about where to start your rotation depending on what type of pull it is, and where to start it off again after say, a stun. Then there's the consideration of which parts to drop to interweave Hammer of Wrath in execute range, and while I can answer such questions when it's calm, it's another piece of gum when you're in the middle of a boss fight. Luckily the 9696 rotation fits together quite seamlessly even when you introduce another 6-second cooldown, or even when you need to start weaving in interrupts (there's three, though only two use the GCD) every now and then. It's pretty much failsafe and idiotsafe - even if you just mash everything as soon as it comes off cooldown, you'll be looking at decent survivability and threat still.
This is a reason for what irks me the most about paladin tanks. They are currently the Flavour of the Month because of their advantage in simplicity in play and greater effective health compared to other tanks (oooh, and built in Guardian Spirit). We have a slightly smaller toolbox (maybe not smaller, but a hell of a lot more situational and therefor it rarely sees use), but if you get along just fine with or without a protection warrior (who, arguably, has the bigger toolbox) then what's the problem? Sure, it may be easier to bring someone who has two two-minute cooldowns to cycle for Vezax's Surges, but 1. They nerfed him to the ground 2. External cooldowns, on-use trinkets and AD work just fine as substitutions for own on-use. Plus, you can glyph to get a 20% damage reduction cooldown as well if you want to. 3. That doesn't mean it's an insurmountable hurdle to pass by bringing something else.
Another area where paladin tanks shine is utility. We have it coming out of our ears, with Kings buffs, extra crit and the splendid Divine Sacrifice just to mention a few. The previously mentioned smaller toolbox consists mainly of our Hands, with Hand of Sanctuary most probably being the most useful one (very helpful for warlocks, who put out ridiculous amounts of DPS and only have one threat reduction cooldown), but Hand of Protection on the other tank to clear stacks of Impale after Gormokk is dead to ease the healers' load during the first bit of the Jormungar duo is not to be sneezed at.
It may well be a case of grass being greener on the other side of the fence syndrome, but I sometimes regret not going with my warrior for my tanking alt. I may well level him to 80 before Cataclysm comes (but make no effort in gearing) so that I may reach my goal of 5 level 80's by the time Cata drops (it used to be 6, then Blizzard announced that they would make troll druids a reality, which just makes me all giddy inside - trolls are after all the epitome of shapeshifting and animal worship - ZG, ZF, and ZA all attest to this together with Gundrak. Also, trolls are my favorite race of the Warcraft universe and has been since Warcraft II). For now, I will use my paladin and have fun while doing it. She may lack the mobility and lockdown capabilities of warriors, but when it comes to eating those big hits, she's just incredible.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
New posts incoming
Yeah. So I kinda fucking neglected this place. I've also lately been on a huge-ass guilt trip for being an arse to a lot of people in-game lately, both random people not important to me and people I consider friends and important. Frantically grinding the daily even when you don't need any gear sort of fucks you up, apperantly. PuG:ing week in and week out also took it's toll and frankly, it wasn't beautiful in any way - I hope the person I told to "stfu and heal" will accept my apology and that the person from whom I ninja'd (yes, I bullied the raid leader into giving me stuff, that counts as ninjaing) the Anub caster shield will come around, even though the ticket didn't go through. What I'd become turned me off the game for a bit. A break was long overdue and we counted the amount of raids I'd done that lockout in /o and reached a two-figure number. While I can honestly say that doing 12 of 14 raids in a week isn't so horrible because you can easily reach eight by doing both versions of VoA, Onyxia-10 and Coliseum on two characters for a total time of maybe four or five hours, the amount of energy poured into drudging the daily heroic on two characters combined with the incredibly frustrating task of leading some 2-4 PuG's a week (I'd typically be the leader of the VoA PuG's and the guild CC-10 runs, and organised one or two 25 man Coliseum PuG's on top of that) for weeks on end will utterly and completely fuck you up. I should have seen it coming, but I didn't, and now I pay for that. It'd been worse if I'd kept it up with three characters.
Sorry for the language, but I can't think of anything else than "fucked up" to describe my current WoW-situation. Instead, I've been catching up on some reading (re-read some Pratchett stuff. Not constructive and it kept me from reading school stuff, but it's a 'not WoW' activity), getting back onto the university volleyball practises and generally trying to find my normal social life. I missed the first 'almost guild only' Onyxia 25 kill ('almost guild only' enough to make the guild front page) and I don't regret it one second - not only because I'd already downed the broodmother several times, but because I took a very good friend to the student's pub, where I had a burger and we had a few beers and caught up on stuff.
I went to the Coliseum ten man run yesterday, if only to keep in touch a bit and fill a spot. I got a new caster dagger for my mage, which makes me able to relax even more as that was one of few upgrades I have left. Overall gear stress really went away - this is what made me into a bully about the shield - the prospect of not having to care about gear for a bit was more interesting than the shield itself. I got on today (technically yesterday) to fill a spot in an Ulduar ten man run continuation. Background: We decided to give some new folks (hi Tam! Hi Iust!) a classic Absolution welcome introduction by dragging them through a horrible horrible scary raid, where they were sure to shit their pants and die, while the rest of us cruised through and were liek "lol we just totally sixteen manned XT". We've done this so many times, I think we should start using it in our advertisements.
Absolution! We throw you in at the Deep End™. Bring clean underpants.
Anyway, as a token of friendship we made an Ulduar ten for those people a couple days after the 25 man shock, where they could enjoy the more social atmosphere of Absolution and relax and learn the fights. Sure, ten-man is more individual responsibility, but it's so much easier to teach and learn in that environment, and wipe-recovery is faster, and with some rocket DPS, the bosses go down real quick and easy as well.
My trail of thought is fucked up. I was supposed to fill a spot in an Ulduar ten man today, remember? Well, said raid didn't happen. I got on a short while a couple of hours after giving up on that endeavour cause I had some auctions that expired (that totally sold, woop woop) and then went off again. I don't intend to get on until the raid wednesday, if even that. I know I have my cloth cooldowns coming off tuesday that I may or may not log in to craft. I'm at 60+ Ebonweave, 20+ Moonshroud (after handing 12 to a guildie) and 20+ Spellweave and don't need neither cash nor materials for any crafted stuff, so I don't see why I keep doing it, and as part of my 'reform' I intend to not hunt that cooldown. Not cause I in any way was obligated to do it before, just to prove to myself that I didn't keep doing them cause I had to, only because there was no good reason to not do it. I know I am not addicted in any way, but sometimes you may have to prove it to yourself and others - said others are probably the thing I am addicted to, if any - not game mechanics.
I was just gonna get on and tell you guys that eventually are reading that there will be posts, stemming from my extra time and energy, and the fact that I have tanked all bosses the game has to offer (except heroic Coliseum beyond Beasts plus Vezax and Yogg) on my incredibly pimped paladin tank (her gear, and Vorla's, came at a terrible price, as mentioned), so there's plenty of experience to pour from. Instead, here I sit pouring my heart out. Maybe I needed this more than I thought. More subjects include the noob (we brought him to Ulduar 25 man as his first raid as well, much sadistic fun was had), my thoughts on the gear system and the 'new' raid bosses in the Coliseum[sic!] and their fun and replayability in game design values, and maybe some thoughts about what has been known about Icecrown. Icecrown feels so much smaller now that Blizzard has already announced Cataclysm (which contains the most retarded shit I've ever heard of - they are truly destroying their intellectual property not only in the metaphorical sense but also in the literal).
With reassurance,
Vorla, Audacity and Togtok
Friday, August 7, 2009
Project Noob - The update
I haven't updated in a while, mainly cause of being busy at work but also from having a short break from WoW and raiding. At this very moment I'm on the last leg of this weeks marathon to reach level 80 on my paladin. My noob is level 52 now, and have been playing the auction house while having troubles finding good places to level. 50-60 is a drudge and I was blessed to do it with Recruit-a-Friend this time around.
I also haven't updated cause the noob expressed some interest in writing a piece of his own and I was kinda holding out on that. I also have made contact with another noob friend who is doing WoW tourism and asked if she would be interested. Apart from not quite knowing what to write about she sounded interested, so you might want to keep an eye out.
I also haven't updated cause the noob expressed some interest in writing a piece of his own and I was kinda holding out on that. I also have made contact with another noob friend who is doing WoW tourism and asked if she would be interested. Apart from not quite knowing what to write about she sounded interested, so you might want to keep an eye out.
Saturday, August 1, 2009
A few thoughts on "normal" servers
THEY AREN'T NORMAL.
Srsly. People on those servers were probably dropped on their heads repeatedly when they were infants. I knew I did the right thing, rolling on a RP server back when I started, cause I figured there'd be a smaller amount of idiots. I rolled on a normal instead of RP-PVP cause I didn't want to be ganked. After levelling a warrior to 60 and a paladin to 70 on a normal PvP server I can say that I was right about the idiot part, but wrong about the ganking part. I've only ever been ganked once, and that was just outside of Blackrock depths by some rogue who probably was just bored waiting for his group and I was at half health. I ganked a bunch of gnome warlocks while riding through Duskwood though, the class/race combo makes me rage. Otherwise I find little pleasure in oneshotting lowbies, since I myself wanted to avoid exactly stuff like bored 60's killing me just cause they could.
Instead, while catching up on professions and class quests I'd missed while rushing through the levels (RAF is silly fast), the orange text "CONTESTED TERRITORY" actually made my tummy tingle a bit with excitement. I had to be on constant lookout and I encountered similarly levelled Allies while questing and we'd have a standoff with both of us coming to the conclusion that it wasn't worth it, and we left each other be. Kinda pussified on a PvP server, but it represents the tension between the factions a lot better than "zomg a dorf must keel it". I may have had the upper hand some of the times being two toons at once (although I'd not be able to PvP effectively on both of them at the same time anyway, but the Allies couldn't know that) but it was still interesting.
Anyway, along to the stuff that struck me about the PvP server I spent some 100 hours the last couple of weeks on, Shattered Hand:
1. There's a lot of PuG:ing going on. The server's population is a lot smaller than Argent Dawn's, but there's a remarkable amount of PuG spam in trade. This leads to dirt cheap Runed Orbs, epics and enchanting mats.
Said PuG's do not advertise for roles, but classes ("need resto shammy, kitty druid" etc) leading me to think that they are doing "class runs" in other instances than VoA. Reserving gear is also very frequent - "LFM FL-10, Firesoul reserved" is common, as is PuG's where only a set amount of bosses (often the easy ones) are targetted. There is also almost always a gear check and achievement link requirement to join regardless if there's just a FL run or not. Orgrimmar bank roof is full with the people spamming trade, cause that's where they gather to do the gear checks.
People will even start their spam advertising, and keep it up for hours, while being the only person in the group. "LF1tank, 1healer, 2DPS HC VH". Quite the optimist - on AD, people go to LFM/Guild/Friends list when there's a last few spots to fill, not straight away. More often than not are groups of 5 DPS in trade going "LF2tanks 3 healers Naxx-10 be skilled have gear link achiv"
2. The trade spam is truly spam. People will copy/paste their message over and over and over again, and in a culture like that, the only way to make yourself heard is in turn spamming, contributing to the vicious cycle. Trade is not just trade - it's LF Arena partner, LFM, Guild recruitment and also a source of some entertaining bickering and accusations of ninjaing (people will come out of PuG's with BoE epics, go to a capital city, spam trade to sell it, and people from that PuG will show up in trade calling them on their ninjaing ways).
3. The economy on the server is, probably in large cause of 1 and 2, completely batshit insane. With ten PuG's to 25 man Ulduar killing 2-3 bosses and FFA rolls for the Runed Orbs instead of them going to a guild's gearing up efforts each night, they go for next to nothing on the AH. I fled Shattered hand with my warrior with 6 runed orbs that I paid 1200 for in total. The BoE epics are since long aquired by everyone who frequent these PuG's, and therefore they only run it again to get another BoE to sell for some easy gold, and since everyone is selling them, the prices are way low. At this moment, I'm waiting for a few auctions to sell (some things still sell well, mostly the stuff you can't farm by PuG:ing end game content - Netherweave cloth is well expensive for example), and before I leave, I might have three or four ilvl 213+ epics for my tanking set straight off the bat, just from money I earned while levelling and selling the stuff that dropped. Emblem of Valor bracers? 200g-500g. On AD they go for 600g a good day. Relics of Ulduar sell for 1g at most, 200-stacks go for 150g more often than not.
I also suspect there's a lot of gold buying going on, Ratchet is fairly often full of higher level guys just standing around, and once when I was transferring my questing from 1k Needles to Stranglethorn, there was a fucking queue to do face-to-face trades with some level 1 orc warrior with a name with only consonants in it. I stood around and looked in horror for a while...
The faction specific auction house will sometimes contain really low-level items for very high prices too - I don't know if this is a case of "I hope some idiot presses the wrong button" or a way to avoid sending gold in the mail (which Blizzard apperantly monitors quite close - I've read up on the subject cause it started to fascinate me) between farmer and buyer, but either way it's not healthy.
While I'm not entirely sure how gold buying and extensive farming by chinese gold selling agencies affect a server's economy, my gut feeling tells me it should raise prices, not dump them (more gold to go around to inflate the market), but I guess people just buy gold for their money sinks (Hogs, epic flying, mammoths and stuff) and that it doesn't make it's way onto the Auction house.
4. People have some serious issues with naming. I've become truly jaded - all of a sudden "tommypala" is a perfectly acceptable name to me. "Twofish" or "Toothache" might have their place on a RP realm since there might be a reason why someone would be called that in game, but next to "Angrymama", "Eranikús", "Drunkdrood" and "Steakheals" (authentic examples I just picked up) in the spam fest that is trade, and on top of that, in fucking Swedish, they are just widely out of place. I just cannot relate to this in anyway. Even when I was 16, playing the epic grind fest that was Diablo II, this kind of naming was fairly rare, here it's commonplace.
5. People will whisper and pester you about all sorts of inane shit. Being a mage in Orgrimmar leads to the occasional whisper on Argent Dawn - people can't get enough portals. But being pretty much anyone, anywhere on Shattered hand will lead to you being spammed by lowbies (I only remembered this cause I just got whispered by a level 16 rogue to boost him in SFK - I told him to gain a few levels and find a real group and play the game the way it was supposed to. Didn't go down too well.) asking to be boosted or wanting to buy your services killing some alliance dude ganking their asses. People will randomly whisper you asking for your PvP gear and if you are willing to boost them in Arena for gold. It's absolutely mental.
6. Related to number 5 - people are twinks. No exception. There's level 19's, 29's, 49's and God knows what all running around with ilvl 25 blues with Mongoose on them. This is the easiest to relate to - twinking and voluntarily staying at a lower level bracket may make for a more interesting game, I for one would never play D&D 4th Ed. above level 10 (or at least never above 15) for my everyday gaming needs so I can kind of understand it. This is very rare on Argent Dawn. I'll see one every now and then, but standing around in Orgrimmar usually only yields people's mains and bank alts doing business at the AH while Undercity, Thunder Bluff and Silvermoon City is shockfull of them.
7. This is barely it's own section, but people use Swedish in their spammages and character names all the time. Shattered hand does have a predominantly Swedish population and as such, it's accepted by everyone there, and the rest can just go fuck itself as far as the probably 15-year old Swedish population is concerned.
The really sad part is that the people acting like they are in their early teens probably quite often are in their early 20's and that my prejudice towards young people in part is wrong, and the people on Shattered hand simply are idiots in large.
It will feel so good to finally have all my alts on RP servers again (huntard and rogue on Steamwheedle will probably stay there for a long while, don't intend to play them again) and level with the soft embrace of Absolution's guild chat close by. I love you guys.
Srsly. People on those servers were probably dropped on their heads repeatedly when they were infants. I knew I did the right thing, rolling on a RP server back when I started, cause I figured there'd be a smaller amount of idiots. I rolled on a normal instead of RP-PVP cause I didn't want to be ganked. After levelling a warrior to 60 and a paladin to 70 on a normal PvP server I can say that I was right about the idiot part, but wrong about the ganking part. I've only ever been ganked once, and that was just outside of Blackrock depths by some rogue who probably was just bored waiting for his group and I was at half health. I ganked a bunch of gnome warlocks while riding through Duskwood though, the class/race combo makes me rage. Otherwise I find little pleasure in oneshotting lowbies, since I myself wanted to avoid exactly stuff like bored 60's killing me just cause they could.
Instead, while catching up on professions and class quests I'd missed while rushing through the levels (RAF is silly fast), the orange text "CONTESTED TERRITORY" actually made my tummy tingle a bit with excitement. I had to be on constant lookout and I encountered similarly levelled Allies while questing and we'd have a standoff with both of us coming to the conclusion that it wasn't worth it, and we left each other be. Kinda pussified on a PvP server, but it represents the tension between the factions a lot better than "zomg a dorf must keel it". I may have had the upper hand some of the times being two toons at once (although I'd not be able to PvP effectively on both of them at the same time anyway, but the Allies couldn't know that) but it was still interesting.
Anyway, along to the stuff that struck me about the PvP server I spent some 100 hours the last couple of weeks on, Shattered Hand:
1. There's a lot of PuG:ing going on. The server's population is a lot smaller than Argent Dawn's, but there's a remarkable amount of PuG spam in trade. This leads to dirt cheap Runed Orbs, epics and enchanting mats.
Said PuG's do not advertise for roles, but classes ("need resto shammy, kitty druid" etc) leading me to think that they are doing "class runs" in other instances than VoA. Reserving gear is also very frequent - "LFM FL-10, Firesoul reserved" is common, as is PuG's where only a set amount of bosses (often the easy ones) are targetted. There is also almost always a gear check and achievement link requirement to join regardless if there's just a FL run or not. Orgrimmar bank roof is full with the people spamming trade, cause that's where they gather to do the gear checks.
People will even start their spam advertising, and keep it up for hours, while being the only person in the group. "LF1tank, 1healer, 2DPS HC VH". Quite the optimist - on AD, people go to LFM/Guild/Friends list when there's a last few spots to fill, not straight away. More often than not are groups of 5 DPS in trade going "LF2tanks 3 healers Naxx-10 be skilled have gear link achiv"
2. The trade spam is truly spam. People will copy/paste their message over and over and over again, and in a culture like that, the only way to make yourself heard is in turn spamming, contributing to the vicious cycle. Trade is not just trade - it's LF Arena partner, LFM, Guild recruitment and also a source of some entertaining bickering and accusations of ninjaing (people will come out of PuG's with BoE epics, go to a capital city, spam trade to sell it, and people from that PuG will show up in trade calling them on their ninjaing ways).
3. The economy on the server is, probably in large cause of 1 and 2, completely batshit insane. With ten PuG's to 25 man Ulduar killing 2-3 bosses and FFA rolls for the Runed Orbs instead of them going to a guild's gearing up efforts each night, they go for next to nothing on the AH. I fled Shattered hand with my warrior with 6 runed orbs that I paid 1200 for in total. The BoE epics are since long aquired by everyone who frequent these PuG's, and therefore they only run it again to get another BoE to sell for some easy gold, and since everyone is selling them, the prices are way low. At this moment, I'm waiting for a few auctions to sell (some things still sell well, mostly the stuff you can't farm by PuG:ing end game content - Netherweave cloth is well expensive for example), and before I leave, I might have three or four ilvl 213+ epics for my tanking set straight off the bat, just from money I earned while levelling and selling the stuff that dropped. Emblem of Valor bracers? 200g-500g. On AD they go for 600g a good day. Relics of Ulduar sell for 1g at most, 200-stacks go for 150g more often than not.
I also suspect there's a lot of gold buying going on, Ratchet is fairly often full of higher level guys just standing around, and once when I was transferring my questing from 1k Needles to Stranglethorn, there was a fucking queue to do face-to-face trades with some level 1 orc warrior with a name with only consonants in it. I stood around and looked in horror for a while...
The faction specific auction house will sometimes contain really low-level items for very high prices too - I don't know if this is a case of "I hope some idiot presses the wrong button" or a way to avoid sending gold in the mail (which Blizzard apperantly monitors quite close - I've read up on the subject cause it started to fascinate me) between farmer and buyer, but either way it's not healthy.
While I'm not entirely sure how gold buying and extensive farming by chinese gold selling agencies affect a server's economy, my gut feeling tells me it should raise prices, not dump them (more gold to go around to inflate the market), but I guess people just buy gold for their money sinks (Hogs, epic flying, mammoths and stuff) and that it doesn't make it's way onto the Auction house.
4. People have some serious issues with naming. I've become truly jaded - all of a sudden "tommypala" is a perfectly acceptable name to me. "Twofish" or "Toothache" might have their place on a RP realm since there might be a reason why someone would be called that in game, but next to "Angrymama", "Eranikús", "Drunkdrood" and "Steakheals" (authentic examples I just picked up) in the spam fest that is trade, and on top of that, in fucking Swedish, they are just widely out of place. I just cannot relate to this in anyway. Even when I was 16, playing the epic grind fest that was Diablo II, this kind of naming was fairly rare, here it's commonplace.
5. People will whisper and pester you about all sorts of inane shit. Being a mage in Orgrimmar leads to the occasional whisper on Argent Dawn - people can't get enough portals. But being pretty much anyone, anywhere on Shattered hand will lead to you being spammed by lowbies (I only remembered this cause I just got whispered by a level 16 rogue to boost him in SFK - I told him to gain a few levels and find a real group and play the game the way it was supposed to. Didn't go down too well.) asking to be boosted or wanting to buy your services killing some alliance dude ganking their asses. People will randomly whisper you asking for your PvP gear and if you are willing to boost them in Arena for gold. It's absolutely mental.
6. Related to number 5 - people are twinks. No exception. There's level 19's, 29's, 49's and God knows what all running around with ilvl 25 blues with Mongoose on them. This is the easiest to relate to - twinking and voluntarily staying at a lower level bracket may make for a more interesting game, I for one would never play D&D 4th Ed. above level 10 (or at least never above 15) for my everyday gaming needs so I can kind of understand it. This is very rare on Argent Dawn. I'll see one every now and then, but standing around in Orgrimmar usually only yields people's mains and bank alts doing business at the AH while Undercity, Thunder Bluff and Silvermoon City is shockfull of them.
7. This is barely it's own section, but people use Swedish in their spammages and character names all the time. Shattered hand does have a predominantly Swedish population and as such, it's accepted by everyone there, and the rest can just go fuck itself as far as the probably 15-year old Swedish population is concerned.
The really sad part is that the people acting like they are in their early teens probably quite often are in their early 20's and that my prejudice towards young people in part is wrong, and the people on Shattered hand simply are idiots in large.
It will feel so good to finally have all my alts on RP servers again (huntard and rogue on Steamwheedle will probably stay there for a long while, don't intend to play them again) and level with the soft embrace of Absolution's guild chat close by. I love you guys.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Tanking cherry popped!
So yeah, I just got out of Blackrock Depths after tanking my first instance. I feel like a noob all over again. And I love it. We did good, but in the beginning I just mashed buttons randomly (I read a prio list but my bindings were perhaps not that great) and managed to hold aggro just fucking fine.
So yeah. I was in LFM because I needed a group for Sunken Temple, for warrior class quest about some fucking feathers or something. And someone randomly whispered me asking if I wanted to come to BRD. Now, I remember that instance to be really hard, but I mostly ran it on my shaman with what was most probably undergeared groups. But I figured, how hard can it be? I outlevel the instance and I have decent gear in almost all slots, and can probably fill the rest while we are down there (I got a few greens and blues, not exactly something that's made me excited before but I went "Woo! New tanking shoulders!" out loud >_>.
I made sure to tell them that I'd never tanked before. Never tanked a warrior, never tanked BRD, never. They seemed fine with it and I figured it'd be OK since most people were around 55. Turns out all of them were Swedish (for some reason they all went SWE!? almost right away). We slugged ourselves over there, me and a priest got there first and started summoning people and in we went. I wanted to show how awesome I was so I chainpulled the miners that are in the antechamber thingie, making sure my rage was optimal and just generally being badass. Inside the instace things were about as easy except for one thing: THE HUNTARD. Yeah, a PuG with a stupid hunter, who'da thought. He kept pulling out of impatience when healer was low on mana and did not turn off his pet's growl. And the damn pet kept ripping mobs off me and kept taking damage and he kept nagging the priest and ret paladin to heal his pet. I swear to God, I had a full playing board of PuG bingo right there. We told him to turn the taunt off, he told us his pet in fact did not have a taunt. At least we weren't wiping so we made do with simply not talking about it anymore. We went around randomly first cause noone had the key (epic confusion throughout the run since there are a gazillion types of keys to keep track of) and the other four had never been there before. I felt big and manly when I walked around with only a vague idea about where the first three bosses were, but we did the Law circle thing and managed to progress. Turns out the hunter was 15 (he said he was turning 16 tomorrow when the paladin said he had to have a quick afk to eat cake with his grandma cause it was his 17th birhtday...), the priest was 29 and the warlock probably somewhere around my age (he called the rest "kids"). Go figure.
I noticed being rage starved pretty much all the time until I figured out the key: CHAINPULL MOAR. Not that I thought rage would be pouring in as fast as a mob looked at you, but having two of them beat on me only allowed me to do shield slam as often as it came off CD basically. Having figured that out, I reached tanking heaven when controlling packs of 8-10 mobs at the same time, moving them according to my slightest whim. Trying to peel off and kick my healer's ass? Not on my watch! Taunt! Shockwave! Fuck yeah ain't going nowhere bitch. Playing a warrior as opposed to a mana class is a completely different game, I got that figured out. But actually tanking, playing the threat game, it just blew my mind. The first group fell apart somewhere around us ninjajumping to the entrance to Molten Core and realizing we were stuck cause noone had the key.
Me and the priest found three new DPS and came back, made sure we hade the key quest and even though the PuG really sucked (worse this time, there was a impolite mage, a really stupid paladin (who was 48 so he had the biggest aggro range with hilarious results) who refused to stay close to me and a DPS warrior with a tanking complex) I stuck around because I was enjoying it so much. I still don't know if it was because it was something completely fresh or because I genuinely enjoyed tanking and will keep on liking it, but I will keep going until I find out. I befriended the priest and we've agreed to do Strat and Scholo someday this week. Will be nice to get some more tanking experience under my belt before I venture into Outland for levelling and the hopefully harder instances there. Still refreshed from the experience I ventured back to my home server, where people don't have guild names that are "potatodruggies" or "chase a naked man" or character names that are "iamalock" or "elitepala" or "dillfather" or "cheesesandwich" or "gandálf" or "hateful" or "unnecessary" or "pelledruid" NYAAAARHRG. Time to sort the lineup for tonights Ulduar-25. Tanks and healers as always but lacking DPS. Comfortable problems.
So yeah. I was in LFM because I needed a group for Sunken Temple, for warrior class quest about some fucking feathers or something. And someone randomly whispered me asking if I wanted to come to BRD. Now, I remember that instance to be really hard, but I mostly ran it on my shaman with what was most probably undergeared groups. But I figured, how hard can it be? I outlevel the instance and I have decent gear in almost all slots, and can probably fill the rest while we are down there (I got a few greens and blues, not exactly something that's made me excited before but I went "Woo! New tanking shoulders!" out loud >_>.
I made sure to tell them that I'd never tanked before. Never tanked a warrior, never tanked BRD, never. They seemed fine with it and I figured it'd be OK since most people were around 55. Turns out all of them were Swedish (for some reason they all went SWE!? almost right away). We slugged ourselves over there, me and a priest got there first and started summoning people and in we went. I wanted to show how awesome I was so I chainpulled the miners that are in the antechamber thingie, making sure my rage was optimal and just generally being badass. Inside the instace things were about as easy except for one thing: THE HUNTARD. Yeah, a PuG with a stupid hunter, who'da thought. He kept pulling out of impatience when healer was low on mana and did not turn off his pet's growl. And the damn pet kept ripping mobs off me and kept taking damage and he kept nagging the priest and ret paladin to heal his pet. I swear to God, I had a full playing board of PuG bingo right there. We told him to turn the taunt off, he told us his pet in fact did not have a taunt. At least we weren't wiping so we made do with simply not talking about it anymore. We went around randomly first cause noone had the key (epic confusion throughout the run since there are a gazillion types of keys to keep track of) and the other four had never been there before. I felt big and manly when I walked around with only a vague idea about where the first three bosses were, but we did the Law circle thing and managed to progress. Turns out the hunter was 15 (he said he was turning 16 tomorrow when the paladin said he had to have a quick afk to eat cake with his grandma cause it was his 17th birhtday...), the priest was 29 and the warlock probably somewhere around my age (he called the rest "kids"). Go figure.
I noticed being rage starved pretty much all the time until I figured out the key: CHAINPULL MOAR. Not that I thought rage would be pouring in as fast as a mob looked at you, but having two of them beat on me only allowed me to do shield slam as often as it came off CD basically. Having figured that out, I reached tanking heaven when controlling packs of 8-10 mobs at the same time, moving them according to my slightest whim. Trying to peel off and kick my healer's ass? Not on my watch! Taunt! Shockwave! Fuck yeah ain't going nowhere bitch. Playing a warrior as opposed to a mana class is a completely different game, I got that figured out. But actually tanking, playing the threat game, it just blew my mind. The first group fell apart somewhere around us ninjajumping to the entrance to Molten Core and realizing we were stuck cause noone had the key.
Me and the priest found three new DPS and came back, made sure we hade the key quest and even though the PuG really sucked (worse this time, there was a impolite mage, a really stupid paladin (who was 48 so he had the biggest aggro range with hilarious results) who refused to stay close to me and a DPS warrior with a tanking complex) I stuck around because I was enjoying it so much. I still don't know if it was because it was something completely fresh or because I genuinely enjoyed tanking and will keep on liking it, but I will keep going until I find out. I befriended the priest and we've agreed to do Strat and Scholo someday this week. Will be nice to get some more tanking experience under my belt before I venture into Outland for levelling and the hopefully harder instances there. Still refreshed from the experience I ventured back to my home server, where people don't have guild names that are "potatodruggies" or "chase a naked man" or character names that are "iamalock" or "elitepala" or "dillfather" or "cheesesandwich" or "gandálf" or "hateful" or "unnecessary" or "pelledruid" NYAAAARHRG. Time to sort the lineup for tonights Ulduar-25. Tanks and healers as always but lacking DPS. Comfortable problems.
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