TankSpot - Blogs - Darksend http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/darksend/ en Sun, 22 Nov 2009 11:45:21 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.tankspot.com/forums/images/misc/rss.jpg TankSpot - Blogs - Darksend http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/darksend/ More Algalon QQ http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/darksend/2489-more-algalon-qq.html Thu, 18 Jun 2009 07:09:43 GMT only this time HE'S THE ONE QQing.

http://www.wowhead.com/?achievement=3004 complete! Should have had it 2 weeks ago (we 1shot him on our second kill) but we had a death early on that got brezed.


video with vent up soon (watch how close our resto druid comes to dieing and then me at the end) ]]> Darksend http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/darksend/2489-more-algalon-qq.html The blogging communities thoughts on Ulduar http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/darksend/2445-blogging-communities-thoughts-ulduar.html Mon, 08 Jun 2009 18:53:40 GMT Over the last few weeks the feral druid blogging community has lost 2 of its greats, flyv and karthis, because they say the game is to easy and no longer holds enjoyment for them. Most of the blogs I follow have posted similiar comments about how they feel blizzard is cheating the hardcore raiding community with its focus to this "we want everyone to see content" kick.

One of the most positive and non-controversial ones ones was posted by marino at http://omen-of-clarity.blogspot.com/...illed-pve.html

In the comments for that post he stats something that finally made me understand my own feelings.

When you kill something in hard mode it is not only something you have already killed in hard mode in 10 man, but also because you have killed that boss in 25 man on easy mode. Here are his exact comments

Quote:
The thing with hardmode is that you can as previously not kill anything till the boss is down. But there is always the choice made to take a look at it later and do it easy mode after a few hours of wiping.

Now this is where the thing is. Getting a boss down on easy mode is no accomplishment. A trained monkey can do it. Killing the boss after on hardmode offering the same (maybe 1 better item) loot does not EVER feel the same as then you kill a boss for the first time pre hardmodes (Vanilla & TBC).

So taken from the equation is the feeling of the first kill, the feeling of the first real kill. Killing something you slaved your ass over was THE one thing hardcore raiders went for. That has been taken from the game.
This made so much sense to me. That is why I am feeling upset at blizzard, not because the game is easier, but because the thrill of knowing you worked your butt off for this kill and it took days and days of constant attention and 1% wipes, kills are no longer rewarding.

Even lore posted on the topic but from a different perspective: http://lore.ftwgaming.com/2009/06/08...uined-raiding/

As a healer pre 3.0 you had to think, A LOT. Whats my mana at, how much time is left in the fight, when will my mana pot come of cooldown, how much healing does a person need, and all this lead to the end result of choosing which rank of the heal to use. Now you spam the max rank of a heal and the only though process is who gets the heal (which even then is usually shaman targets a melee for chain heal and they all get it, one other person on group healing, everyone else spaming an assigned tank).

Lore commented on sunwell, but even in sunwell shaman were juggling which rank of chain heal to use. ]]> Darksend http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/darksend/2445-blogging-communities-thoughts-ulduar.html Algalon 10 Defeated http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/darksend/2437-algalon-10-defeated.html Sun, 07 Jun 2009 01:55:45 GMT Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa us. Unfortunately the fight is probably the easiest and most straightforward boss in the entire zone other than 0 tower Flame Leviathan. The only hard part: He hits tanks ala brutallas during stomp. Healers have such a hard time on this fight but keep the tanks alive and collect loot. Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa us.

Unfortunately the fight is probably the easiest and most straightforward boss in the entire zone other than 0 tower Flame Leviathan.

The only hard part: He hits tanks ala brutallas during stomp. Healers have such a hard time on this fight but keep the tanks alive and collect loot. ]]> Darksend http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/darksend/2437-algalon-10-defeated.html Wish me luck http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/darksend/2376-wish-me-luck.html Fri, 22 May 2009 23:52:04 GMT Blizzard corrected what I can only assume was a bug in the 10 man meta when the patch came out, making the hodir achievement the actual hard mode instead of the not getting to many stacks. killing 25 iron dwarves with a flame breath in a single attempt and still killing the boss, GG 15 minute enrage timer. Just like the 25 man 2 days ago, 4T flame levi suffered 2 hours of wipes due to people getting blocked. our 1st attempt in 3 hours where no one got blocked, 10 man orbit-uary down. Image: http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/1135/onlymimiron.jpg Our dk had to leave so we plan to spend all day tomorrow on firefighter, giving us access to algalon and receiving our drakes on the same kill if we manage to down it. Wish us luck Blizzard corrected what I can only assume was a bug in the 10 man meta when the patch came out, making the hodir achievement the actual hard mode instead of the not getting to many stacks.

killing 25 iron dwarves with a flame breath in a single attempt and still killing the boss, GG 15 minute enrage timer.

Just like the 25 man 2 days ago, 4T flame levi suffered 2 hours of wipes due to people getting blocked. our 1st attempt in 3 hours where no one got blocked, 10 man orbit-uary down.



Our dk had to leave so we plan to spend all day tomorrow on firefighter, giving us access to algalon and receiving our drakes on the same kill if we manage to down it.

Wish us luck ]]> Darksend http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/darksend/2376-wish-me-luck.html Heroic: Heartbreaker, An offtanks perspective http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/darksend/2373-heroic-heartbreaker-offtanks-perspective.html Fri, 22 May 2009 07:25:09 GMT Days behind I know but we spent all night tuesday working on 4tower Flame Levi and battling lag all night (could not even kill the heart because of 5 second globals)

Wednesday was a mish-mash of trying different setups to see what worked best then we lost people to DCes and computer explosions and had to call it after a couple of sub 15% enrage timers.

Finally got him tonight though. My job was to offtank the sparks that spawn in phase 2. For those who do not know in hard mode in phase 2 XT spawns adds called life sparks from every person who gets a light bomb.

Let me just say it is the most nerve racking thing I have tanked since Muru. It was pretty intense. We juggled with the idea of having our DK (one of our 3 main tanks who usually is the one DPSing while me and the warrior tank) spec unholy and do the adds since they did not have a COE or equivilent on the sparks and it was really hurting. After we finally killed it tonight he confesed the reason he did not want to do it is because he did not trust himself doing it and he did not want to wipe us by doing something stupid (such as taunting the boss, which I somehow managed to only do twice in 3 hours of attempts believe me thats a REALLY REALLY good thing if you knew me).

I commented while we were wiping several times it felt like the muru door, and believe me I was just as bad at this as the muru door.

For one, it felt like taunt was bugged. On a specific case when I was actually watching it was acting more like challenging shout in that it would freeze the warlocks and my threat and when the debuff wore off I would lose agro and it would go right back to him. Luckly they die so fast if you lose agro sub 40% they die before it can get to them.

Two, before I could even target them they would melee the person they spawn out of. Most of the time it was healers who probably had some hot or something rolling and pulled agro from that. It got confusing when it happened to the same warlock 3-4 times in a row. People with the light bomb MUST WORK WITH THE OFFTANK and drop them in a good spot and start moving immediately.

Which brings me to three, people not paying attention and running directly through me to the "drop spot" and getting themselves killed. When the spark melees someone anyone in melee range gets hit for a "shock" ability which hits decently hard. Luckily this stopped happening when we changed our strat but it was still quite annoying at times.

Four, the lack of druid's burst threat is magnified 10 fold in this role. I hit it with a crit maul and a crit mangle as soon as it spawns and a caster still rips it right off me. I got so frustrated and I broke the cardinal rule of tanking. I began to doubt my abilities. After the kill one of the warlocks commented that I was barely tanking the sparks at all and he was so right. It was literally they would spawn ild hit it twice it would run away and when it got 1/2 way to the group i would taunt it back. In retrospect this probably cut down on the healing I needed significantly. but as I said before if they were in melee range of me at 40% i stopped caring because if someone pulled it would be dead anyway.

I have never had a more frustrating or nerve racking time as a tank in all of wow besides muru that even compares to how I felt tonight. All night i just kept thinking "PLEASE DO NOT TAUNT XT BY MISTAKE" over and over in my head. It was extremely scary and never not fun and it really pushed me to the limit.

Excelent work blizzard ]]> Darksend http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/darksend/2373-heroic-heartbreaker-offtanks-perspective.html 10 man ulduar meta, almost there. http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/darksend/2353-10-man-ulduar-meta-almost-there.html Mon, 18 May 2009 08:15:57 GMT This week, my 10 man group completed 5 achievements for our meta: disarmed, crazy cat lady, knock knock knock on wood (3 elder freya), i love the smell of saronite in the morning (hard mode vezax), and one light in the darkness (killing yogg with only 1 watcher helping, in our case thorim meaning no sanity beams). This leaves us with firefighter and 4 tower flame levi (plus 2 random non hard mode achievements) to recieve our ulduar drakes. I was so happy about this I wrote a thank you to blizzard complimenting them on 10 man ulduar which can be found *on my blog here (http://mother-bear.blogspot.com/2009/05/dear-blizzard-i-am-truly-impressed.html).* In conclusion, I AM NOT looking forward to next weeks 10 man. This week, my 10 man group completed 5 achievements for our meta: disarmed, crazy cat lady, knock knock knock on wood (3 elder freya), i love the smell of saronite in the morning (hard mode vezax), and one light in the darkness (killing yogg with only 1 watcher helping, in our case thorim meaning no sanity beams).

This leaves us with firefighter and 4 tower flame levi (plus 2 random non hard mode achievements) to recieve our ulduar drakes.

I was so happy about this I wrote a thank you to blizzard complimenting them on 10 man ulduar which can be found on my blog here.

In conclusion, I AM NOT looking forward to next weeks 10 man. ]]> Darksend http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/darksend/2353-10-man-ulduar-meta-almost-there.html <![CDATA[Alts > Mains]]> http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/darksend/2237-alts-mains.html Mon, 20 Apr 2009 08:56:08 GMT GG 10 man yogg down on my alt while my main still does not have it I WANT MY NERD POINTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GG

10 man yogg down on my alt while my main still does not have it

I WANT MY NERD POINTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ]]> Darksend http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/darksend/2237-alts-mains.html Kologarn tanking legs and the armor meta http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/darksend/2071-kologarn-tanking-legs-armor-meta.html Sun, 08 Mar 2009 09:09:11 GMT

honestly blizzard, if you want to f up your own game, well it is your game, but how can you justify this after the amount of armor you just took away from druids. and do not give me any BS about SD.

i know i am over reacting because we have yet to see any of the feral itemization, but just that one item accounts for 20% of the armor differences between druids and warriors, if this trend continues warriors will have more armor than bears when we are all in full ulduar gear

now that is green armor so it most likely will not be multiplied by the armor meta, but will it get multiplied by toughness ? assuming no on the meta and yes on toughness, that is a 909 armor upgrade for the same ilvl

and since we are on the meta let me quote something GC said before 3.0.8

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...1&pageNo=8#149

Quote:

Defender's Code will grant 850 armor unless you have the meta-gem.


The meta gem increases all your armor so it's just a 2% bonus to everything. You want this gem. Fortunately it is not a rare drop like some of the other gear so we know you can get it.

It will get 700 armor that is not multiplied by anything (except the meta).

the last part was in reference to
Quote:
finally, in a previous post, you stated that all armor item budget would be reallocated on staves. For example my staff from heroic halls of lightning has 700 armor. Will it continue to have 700 armor that just no longer gets multiplied by anything, or will those item budgets be spent and the staff will gain (purely random here) say 20 agi and 30 stam?
so what happened GC, why does the meta not affect rings capes weapons and trinkets

BUT IT AFFECTS SHIELDS? really blizzard, come on


/5am rant over

but it still does not make anything i said less true, druids are seriously hurting right now if those legs turn into a trend

nice placeholder on the idol btw, that better be available on the vendor and not a drop when this instance goes live and it better be a tanking piece the community will not stand for having to do ulduar to replace a lvl 70 badge item ]]> Darksend http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/darksend/2071-kologarn-tanking-legs-armor-meta.html Glory of the raider, alt style http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/darksend/2039-glory-raider-alt-style.html Wed, 25 Feb 2009 05:09:53 GMT so tonight, AFTER FOR THE SECOND STRAIGHT WEEK OF LOSING IMMORTAL ON KT BECASE DPS CANT KEEP IT IN THEIR PANTS AFTER AN MC (also why the hell does he suddenly frostbolt for 20K is it something he does if the target is out of melee range?) my alt group took out our frustration by finishing up our glory of the raider with a 6 minute maly. This gave 4 of us our glory of the raider, we have 3 more people getting it tomorrow, along with 3 who still need nightfall who will also be in the run tomorrow/were in the run tonight one of the people in our 6 minute not only got 6 minute tonight, but it was his 1st maly kill on that character in 10 man No run was done with more than 4 mains, including the none we had for undying and 8 man The only problem we had was nightfall, we eventually gave up and used a voidwalker, but it was not an easy fight even with a voidwalker, it still requires a significant ammount of healing while i do feel like we cheated the achievement, the week before in a full alt run we 1shot 2drake and the prospect of 310 mounts was just to tempting I would just like to thank my group for sticking with it, and the few mains who helped us /cheers guys we earned it so tonight, AFTER FOR THE SECOND STRAIGHT WEEK OF LOSING IMMORTAL ON KT BECASE DPS CANT KEEP IT IN THEIR PANTS AFTER AN MC (also why the hell does he suddenly frostbolt for 20K is it something he does if the target is out of melee range?) my alt group took out our frustration by finishing up our glory of the raider with a 6 minute maly.

This gave 4 of us our glory of the raider, we have 3 more people getting it tomorrow, along with 3 who still need nightfall who will also be in the run tomorrow/were in the run tonight

one of the people in our 6 minute not only got 6 minute tonight, but it was his 1st maly kill on that character in 10 man

No run was done with more than 4 mains, including the none we had for undying and 8 man

The only problem we had was nightfall, we eventually gave up and used a voidwalker, but it was not an easy fight even with a voidwalker, it still requires a significant ammount of healing

while i do feel like we cheated the achievement, the week before in a full alt run we 1shot 2drake and the prospect of 310 mounts was just to tempting

I would just like to thank my group for sticking with it, and the few mains who helped us

/cheers guys we earned it ]]> Darksend http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/darksend/2039-glory-raider-alt-style.html NSFW, children, or kittens http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/darksend/2032-nsfw-children-kittens.html Tue, 24 Feb 2009 17:51:48 GMT YES, ALL THE KITTENS MUST DIE Words cannot explain my outrage at blizzard right now. 1) everyone and their mother says they would trade a 5 minute shield wall for a 1 minute 20% cooldown LET ME TELL YOU SOMETHING, 20% DAMAGE REDUCTION IS NOT ENOUGH TO SAVE ME, i cannot tell you how misinformed you are. The number of times i died from full health with barkskin up to sarths breath in 25 man, 2, because after the second time my raid realized how much it sucked and as such we had to use 2 cooldowns on the breath i barkskined. so what does blizzard do, give you a glyph to reduce shieldwall talented to 1 minute, BUT AT 40%. Fine, but now it gets fun 2) GLYPH OF BARKSKIN: reduces your chance to be crit while barkskin is active COOL PVP GLYPH. I HAVE BEEN WAITING 4 MONTHS FOR GLYPH OF BARKSKIN: increases the cooldown by 3 minutes but the damage reduction by 20% and finally 3) IMPROVED BARKSKIN: 45 point RESTO TALENT so i can finally say once and for all the barkskin IS NOT A TANKING TOOL despite being useable in forms. It is a pvp tool and a poor excuse for a shield wall. it would honestly be better if we had never gotten it in forms in the 1st place, at least then they would not have to nerf our HP and armor to compensate. at this point i think i am just going to macro it to every ability and use it as a passive damage reduction and completely forget i even have it /rant over now it gets to the really fun part WHY, why on earth would you give us more stam blizzard, i mean furor is next to useless to max out now but more stam?! what! you should be reducing our HP not buffing it. Savage defense is so horribly implimented it makes me want to cut myself. the nerf to armor is an 8% physical damage increase. But our hp is going to be so much higher that even with a 12 vs 16% reduction on magic damage its a little insane how much of an advantadge we have. Also, who decided to make it on crit, i understand that if they wanted to make it block that warriors cannot block while stunned or otherwise able to attack, but crit ok i needed someplace to vent at how much the druid class is going to hell and at how much people over value barkskin YES, ALL THE KITTENS MUST DIE

Words cannot explain my outrage at blizzard right now.

1) everyone and their mother says they would trade a 5 minute shield wall for a 1 minute 20% cooldown

LET ME TELL YOU SOMETHING, 20% DAMAGE REDUCTION IS NOT ENOUGH TO SAVE ME, i cannot tell you how misinformed you are. The number of times i died from full health with barkskin up to sarths breath in 25 man, 2, because after the second time my raid realized how much it sucked and as such we had to use 2 cooldowns on the breath i barkskined.

so what does blizzard do, give you a glyph to reduce shieldwall talented to 1 minute, BUT AT 40%. Fine, but now it gets fun

2) GLYPH OF BARKSKIN: reduces your chance to be crit while barkskin is active COOL PVP GLYPH. I HAVE BEEN WAITING 4 MONTHS FOR GLYPH OF BARKSKIN: increases the cooldown by 3 minutes but the damage reduction by 20%

and finally

3) IMPROVED BARKSKIN: 45 point RESTO TALENT


so i can finally say once and for all the barkskin IS NOT A TANKING TOOL despite being useable in forms. It is a pvp tool and a poor excuse for a shield wall.

it would honestly be better if we had never gotten it in forms in the 1st place, at least then they would not have to nerf our HP and armor to compensate.

at this point i think i am just going to macro it to every ability and use it as a passive damage reduction and completely forget i even have it

/rant over

now it gets to the really fun part

WHY, why on earth would you give us more stam blizzard, i mean furor is next to useless to max out now but more stam?! what!

you should be reducing our HP not buffing it.

Savage defense is so horribly implimented it makes me want to cut myself. the nerf to armor is an 8% physical damage increase. But our hp is going to be so much higher that even with a 12 vs 16% reduction on magic damage its a little insane how much of an advantadge we have.

Also, who decided to make it on crit, i understand that if they wanted to make it block that warriors cannot block while stunned or otherwise able to attack, but crit




ok i needed someplace to vent at how much the druid class is going to hell

and at how much people over value barkskin ]]> Darksend http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/darksend/2032-nsfw-children-kittens.html BT after patch, the alt class http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/darksend/1422-bt-after-patch-alt-class.html Tue, 21 Oct 2008 01:59:37 GMT Once the servers were stable, we decided to do KJ on wednesday. We cleared it in 2 hours mostly screwing around not trying, so we decided to go to BT that same night. Having 6 off days this week we ran 2 alt ZAs, the successes of which can we seen in my previous blog, along with getting the blood in the second run. I log in this morning and am told my warrior is tanking an alt BT this week, not only was it an alt bt, but only about 15 of us were from my guild, the other were made up of people my guild had sold T6 pieces to in the past and decided to give our loyal customers a free ride this week. I was highly skeptical that my warrior would be able to MT this, just 2 weeks ago he was in heroic/lower kara gear and had never tanked anything harder than opera. Having been the guilds main feral tank, they decided to let me MT even with worse gear than the offtank warrior who regularly played a warlock (i suggested that he main tank because he knows all about agro, hes always pulling it O.o) simply because i knew the marking, pulling, and general non-officer raid leading responsibilities that a main tank must deal with. Well anyway, we get to naj, i rip. Supremus dead after 1 kite phase. Akama, place all dps on top and ignore spawns, spawned died quick but right after he actived all the melee died so phase 2 took a bit but still pretty good. My second most enjoyable moment of the night, i absolutly RIPPPED teron 1200 dps. Ros went smoothly, 1st deaden i missed because im bad and went from 80 rage to 10 in 2 seconds right before deaden because i didnt see the timerm next one got kicked, 3rd one i didnt get hit for a while and had to bloodrage reflect but i got it! 1/3 i fail i know. Bloodboil was our 1st wipe of the night cuz melee couldnt keep it in their pants and pulled off the offtank. Killed 2nd attempt but still very sloppy on the transitions. Mother with 0 SR we destroyed. This was the 1 fight that we were worried about and we aced it thank god for no ports into the raid or on top of the tanks. Council was the easiest thing ever, but i still impressed myself. There is a lot to pay attention to and keeping a rotation along with being the one fight i did not have my OT to keep TC demo up for me while doing that much moving and watching for spell reflects, i did not realize he had 2 judgements but every casted judgement of blood i reflected except 2 where i had no rage, i had always tanked the rogue ever since i 1st set foot in that room, it was so much fun to see it from another tanks perspective. as you all know, i play a feral druid, we cant use deviates or noggenfoggers, and ive always been the flame tank. The 1st thing i do when i get to illidans room, SPAM NOGGERFOGGER!!!! i was a mini skeleton feral druid tanking illidan, my quest had been complete. Well anyway, illidan without shear is boring, we killed my add (in 0 fr mind you) and then the other offtank got hit with a beam. i died after taunting and we wiped it. Take 2, again get my mini skellie up, get the md, tank phase 1, go run over they kill my flame, other tank did an amazing job the second time around, and i pick him up in phase 3, at which point the offtank alt-f4s. He is our tank for phase 4 (only main not locked from the wednesday raid but hes a mage, o well hes always wanted to tank illidan its his dream same as mine). Well anyway we push him so hard that he gets to phase 4 and his tank is still not disappeared. Our warlock with no sr and 12K hp tanks him no problem, i pick him up in phase 3, push him to phase 5, trap is in no mans land but wall was on CD from the flame (again that no FR thing) and i die at 1%, well we killed him with about 30 parasites up (thank god those disappear now). all in all i got no loot but it was the most fun i have had in this game since, well since pre bc, the last time my warrior was prot, 2.0 had just hit i switched from the fury warrior and top dps and wiping on firemaw and skerum to the guilds new main tank with much much worse tanking gear and lead them to killing nef and fankris my 1st week as main tank. heres the WWS, critque my rotation, dps, etc i would like feedback on how i did, being a feral druid main tank for 2 years did not prepare me at all for tonight, it was truly an eye opener as to how the other side does it. http://wowwebstats.com/v64qzuvo4aioq?m Once the servers were stable, we decided to do KJ on wednesday. We cleared it in 2 hours mostly screwing around not trying, so we decided to go to BT that same night. Having 6 off days this week we ran 2 alt ZAs, the successes of which can we seen in my previous blog, along with getting the blood in the second run.

I log in this morning and am told my warrior is tanking an alt BT this week, not only was it an alt bt, but only about 15 of us were from my guild, the other were made up of people my guild had sold T6 pieces to in the past and decided to give our loyal customers a free ride this week.

I was highly skeptical that my warrior would be able to MT this, just 2 weeks ago he was in heroic/lower kara gear and had never tanked anything harder than opera.

Having been the guilds main feral tank, they decided to let me MT even with worse gear than the offtank warrior who regularly played a warlock (i suggested that he main tank because he knows all about agro, hes always pulling it O.o) simply because i knew the marking, pulling, and general non-officer raid leading responsibilities that a main tank must deal with.

Well anyway, we get to naj, i rip. Supremus dead after 1 kite phase. Akama, place all dps on top and ignore spawns, spawned died quick but right after he actived all the melee died so phase 2 took a bit but still pretty good. My second most enjoyable moment of the night, i absolutly RIPPPED teron 1200 dps. Ros went smoothly, 1st deaden i missed because im bad and went from 80 rage to 10 in 2 seconds right before deaden because i didnt see the timerm next one got kicked, 3rd one i didnt get hit for a while and had to bloodrage reflect but i got it! 1/3 i fail i know.

Bloodboil was our 1st wipe of the night cuz melee couldnt keep it in their pants and pulled off the offtank. Killed 2nd attempt but still very sloppy on the transitions. Mother with 0 SR we destroyed. This was the 1 fight that we were worried about and we aced it thank god for no ports into the raid or on top of the tanks.

Council was the easiest thing ever, but i still impressed myself. There is a lot to pay attention to and keeping a rotation along with being the one fight i did not have my OT to keep TC demo up for me while doing that much moving and watching for spell reflects, i did not realize he had 2 judgements but every casted judgement of blood i reflected except 2 where i had no rage, i had always tanked the rogue ever since i 1st set foot in that room, it was so much fun to see it from another tanks perspective.

as you all know, i play a feral druid, we cant use deviates or noggenfoggers, and ive always been the flame tank. The 1st thing i do when i get to illidans room, SPAM NOGGERFOGGER!!!! i was a mini skeleton feral druid tanking illidan, my quest had been complete. Well anyway, illidan without shear is boring, we killed my add (in 0 fr mind you) and then the other offtank got hit with a beam. i died after taunting and we wiped it.

Take 2, again get my mini skellie up, get the md, tank phase 1, go run over they kill my flame, other tank did an amazing job the second time around, and i pick him up in phase 3, at which point the offtank alt-f4s. He is our tank for phase 4 (only main not locked from the wednesday raid but hes a mage, o well hes always wanted to tank illidan its his dream same as mine). Well anyway we push him so hard that he gets to phase 4 and his tank is still not disappeared. Our warlock with no sr and 12K hp tanks him no problem, i pick him up in phase 3, push him to phase 5, trap is in no mans land but wall was on CD from the flame (again that no FR thing) and i die at 1%, well we killed him with about 30 parasites up (thank god those disappear now).

all in all i got no loot but it was the most fun i have had in this game since, well since pre bc, the last time my warrior was prot, 2.0 had just hit i switched from the fury warrior and top dps and wiping on firemaw and skerum to the guilds new main tank with much much worse tanking gear and lead them to killing nef and fankris my 1st week as main tank.

heres the WWS, critque my rotation, dps, etc i would like feedback on how i did, being a feral druid main tank for 2 years did not prepare me at all for tonight, it was truly an eye opener as to how the other side does it.

http://wowwebstats.com/v64qzuvo4aioq?m ]]> Darksend http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/darksend/1422-bt-after-patch-alt-class.html 3 raids 2 pugs 1 horibad server but 4huge upgrades http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/darksend/1416-3-raids-2-pugs-1-horibad-server-but-4huge-upgrades.html Sun, 19 Oct 2008 06:29:51 GMT The day started off terribly, got into a pug grull that the server took a dump right as we started the pull. Amazingly, we all logged in dead 20 minutes later, with no one leaving the raid. We decide to take 1 more shot at it, wipe because the mage tank got 0 heals. Get in a new mage tank with 2K more health and we kill em flawlessly.

Gruul, well here is a story, im offtanking, i dodge the first 6 in a row, from white attacks and 8-10 Second shield slams im at 90% threat, (mind you this warrior did not have gag order, 5/5 cruelty 0/3 ATTT, 1 in imp heroic 4/5 deflection and no imp TC). Well at the 1st shatter hes only at 90%, so i decide to take matters into my own hands, reck, shield block, shield slam heroic and hold it from 90-dead 2 grows later.

about 5-6 hours later i get into a pug mags. What a shock SERVER CRASHES AGAIN. an hour later we are finally pulling, after having to replace the 2 tanks and 3 healers who could still not log back in. I take the raid over, set up groups, boxes, clickers, and as im assigning the last clicker some retard hits a mob with 1/2 of us locked out. 2 people leave, replace em, have everything perfect, and circle tank proves not only to be the retard who hit the mob early last time, but tanks his mob right no top of skull and they chain heal each other. He says it was so they could bladeflury (1 mutilate rogue only rogue) and WW (no non tanking warriors). kick him for a DPS i tank 3 adds with the help of an MD, FLAWLESS pickup of mag (one of the few times ive truly managed to surprise myself in this game). Well a clicker lags out and wipes us. Next time, again someone pulls early, we recover with the help of MDs, another clean pickup, and the server goes boom again. We call it.

I go get some pizza and take a nap, wake up to see my friend logged on and is leveling, go run him through all the elite nagrand quests and he dings 70.


Within 10 minutes of him getting 70 we have a full group of 1/2 alts 1/2 full t6. 2 minutes after that the server dies for another 20 minutes.

While this is going on, i am on wowhead looking up the plate drops i need from ZA. I promised my pally he could have all the ret gear and i get the tanking gear. I look at how big of an upgrade some of it will be and think wow i bet all of it is going to drop. I think think Q@#%@% its not gona happen now because i thought that no more thinking that!!!


So we get zoned in and of course it takes about 10 more minutes to click the gong because of god knows what glich.

We finally get moving, i tank the 1st boss for about 20 seconds when the pally rips it off me with his 4K TPS Judgement of light. As soon as the boss dies i go running over to the chest, knowing if there was 1 item i needed the most it was the shoulders. BAM!!!!!!!!!!


So we move on to bear, the enh shaman agroed while we were drinking i had no rage paly tank had no mana. Kills him we taunt and the cleave kills the 2 ret pallies. We both got mangled in the chaos so i take over in phase 2 with 15 seconds left on mangle, i hit shield wall instantly just in case, he did not bleed me once the entire time. BAM BOOTS!!!!!!!!!

I start thinking to myself, wow everything really is going to drop. and fighting myself telling myself STOP THINKING THAT AND JYNXING IT.

I main tank dragonhawk simply because it is after all my alt and he is our guilds felmyst/muru pally tank so he picks up the adds. We dont kill either hatcher but rather group up on the boss in the conscrate, well im amazed my TPS held out because just as the 2 bird spawn hatched (6 total birds at this point) well i call "incoming birds" and everything popped. Cshout, last stand, shield wall. boss is dead before Cshout ended. SHIELD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


So we get to lynx and wait for the pat on purpose, intentionally pull all 8 mobs in his room, that was the best. Mid pull i comment that "my streak will end here theres nothing i need off this guy." Boss dead 27 minutes left on the time.


3rd chest was the mana attuned band. Well, 4th chest, SIGNET OF THE LAST DEFENDER!

Hex lord dropped nothing but there i did in fact need nothing (being both an engineer and the fact that the shield block meta is to good to pass up)

Zul'jin was the only real let down of the night, i was hoping for at least the axe but really wanting that chest. He dropped the parry trinket which is nice but i dont know if ill ever used it, picked it up cuz no one else needed it.

All in all 4 bosses 4 huge upgrades (my ring had been the http://www.wowhead.com/?item=30006 from the netherstorm quest S2 shoulders http://www.wowhead.com/?item=28316 and http://www.wowhead.com/?item=28747 ]]> Darksend http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/darksend/1416-3-raids-2-pugs-1-horibad-server-but-4huge-upgrades.html Do guilds still have Main tanks and Off tanks? http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/darksend/1367-do-guilds-still-have-main-tanks-off-tanks.html Sun, 05 Oct 2008 03:55:00 GMT so last night i had an idea for my next blog, then upon waking up i totally forgot what i was going to write about.

instead, im going to right about guild structure, and to rant about even feral druids saying they can only ever be offtanks. What is an off tank? what is a main tank? Espeically come sunwell, and even in parts of BT and hyjal, most guilds need 2 tanks. I used to call myself the "main-offtank" until shadowmoon insignia dropped, months after illidan had been on farm (i was on vacation when the 1st one dropped but that tank ninja transfered soon after). The GM/MT tells me "dark, go ahead and take it, you have earned it. You are as much this guilds main tank as I am."

All of this is based on progression gear from my POV when expansion/new content 1st came out (i will make note of things that can be done via overgearing). I experienced all off SSC abd TK before vashj had ever been killed and in fact MTed most of the encounters.

[rant]Lets go through everything after KZ:

Gruul's Lair:
-1st kill, alliance 3rd guild to kill HKM, i MTed him. Second kill I tanked the shaman because we did not have any hunters or our boomkin.
-Server 4th alliance guild to kill Gruul, i offtanked simply because when i tried main tanking the prot warrior could not maintain secondary threat and to many melee died, but not because i was incapable.

Magtheridon's Lair:
I never experienced Mag until after i transfered and joined a guild that killed him multiple times previously. I always tanked the 5th add to be killed.

Serpentshrine Cavern:
-Hydross: here i will admit is druid unfriendly, even if you could get the required resistance and crit immunity, the lack off OH S@# buttons still favored warriors.
-Lurker: 1st time i ever killed him was with me as the MT
-Tidewalker: attacked faster that shield block charges, again I mted him my 1st time ever killing him.
-Fathom Lord: If i had a shaman i tanked the shaman (grounding frost shock) if not i was on the hunter.
-Leo: Again i always Mted this, to make things better about the 4th or 5th kill i actually tanked the FR phase while MTing the main phase as well
-Vashj: Shifting favors a druid as long as a shaman is around for groundings, mostly i wore my DPS gear taunted a naga for 10 seconds to bring it to the tank and then went back to dps (which was rather fun on this fight so i did not mind not tanking)

The Eye:
-A'lar: Platforms phase 1 adds phase 2, at times i would even be on adds and taunt the armor debuff then have the MT taunt back.
-Void Reaver: Tanked from about 75 to 20 my 1st time doing it because of bear avoidance.
-Solarian (v2): this is where you had 2-3 tanks in 600 arcane resist off to the side AFKing while people brought stuff over to you, even without defensive stance i was chosen as one of those tanks.
-Kael: Ok, you got me here. But i cannot tell you the number of times that at 55% dps would not kill a shield and a pyro would kill the tank, i would click off salv and pick it up and tank it to death

Hyjal: We did trash with 1 prot warrior me as feral and a fury warrior who only used tank gear on abom waves.
-Rage: 1st ever kill i was DPSing, tank died at 50% i tanked him in my DPS gear.
-Anetheron: Fr tank simply because no other tank had FR.
-Kaz: Stuns, put on stam and armor gear and always tanked him.
-Azgalor: Always tanked dooms because they stunned, usually had about 4-5 on me by the time he died.
-Archi: Mted our second kill when our MT had to go to work, back when fear ward was 30 sec DC. Probably still doable since fear is no longer an agro loss (tremor + 3 priests would also trivialize this)

Black Temple: This is were Offtank and Maintank begin to lose all meaning.
-Najentus: Favors warrior because they mitigate the bubble better with defensive stance.
-Supremus: 1st kill warrior died to a volcano, we kept all melee out and i solo tanked it from 30%.
-Akama: 3 tank fight.
-Teron: i refuse to tank this fight simply because im not passing up my DPS benchmark fight.
-Bloodboil: 2 tank fight
-RoS: Warrior tanks phase 2 (few weeks ago we kicked every deaden and i MTed but we were all in full sunwell gear). I always tanked phase 3 because of bear threat.
-Mother: This fight will go against everything i have ever said. The one time i MTed this fight we wiped because the very 1st port 3 healers died. As the MT i could not pop out and battle rez. I have never been allowed to tank it since because bad people die to ports, and blizzard in there infinite wisdom only gave 1 class a battle rez. O, and old mother, i would dodge 3 lashes in a row and have to sit down to not get ported, i sit down she misses me, i get ported tank gets insta gibbbed because im not there to soak a lash.
-Council: 3 tank fight, i usually take the rogue, the judgement is reflectable and if you get every one even a bear druid cannot match a warriors TPS on that.
-Illidan: say what you want about sheer, tanking flames is one of the best tanking challenges in the game.

Sunwell Plateau: The main tank offtank role completely disappears.
-Kalec: 3 tanks
-Brut: 2 tanks
-felmyst: blizzards encounter design team at its best HEY GUYS NO PROT PALLY SEE YA TOMORROW.
-Twins: 2 tanks
-M'uru: 4 tanks
-Kj: 2 tanks + ranged tank (druids and pallies are the best on adds)[/rant]

So i have to ask, do sunwell guilds still have a main tank and an offtank? ]]> Darksend http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/darksend/1367-do-guilds-still-have-main-tanks-off-tanks.html Gear template/wishlist http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/darksend/1360-gear-template-wishlist.html Thu, 02 Oct 2008 08:59:14 GMT it's 5am, i am bored out of my mind, and i cannot fall asleep because my sleep schedule is screwed to hell.

we've all been there, so what do i decide to do in my sleep deprived delirium, LOOK UP WHAT GEAR I WILL WANT FROM NAXX.

i think to myself, this is going to be easy, there can't be that many items to compare. So i start with helms, as a feral tank the 32 stam + 2% armor meta is going to be a must, so it must have a meta, that narrows it down to 2, t7 25 man and a same iLvl helm with no drop location. This other helm blows t7 away, 1 down 15 slots to go

neck, they are all near identical, this one has defense and dodge that one has defense and expertise but less armor and more stam, that one has a socket but only defense and the lowest stam of the 3. I finally decide on the expertise one.

Shoulders, there are 6 leather shoulders 3 each from the 10 and 25 if you include the set shoulders.

let me go on a rant here, druids already got the least benefit of armor pen because of our bleeds, it might have been a little better for a bear druid but not by much. And now, from everything i have heard, armor pen is being applied AFTER sunder and faire fire. Boss has 10K armor, 5185 with sunder and FF. armor pen is now a percent, so if you have 10% armor pen that is 519 armor reduction. That is a swing of almost 50% because of the forumla blizzard is using.

back to shoulders, both the tier 7 druid shoulders have armor pen rating on it, why i asked myself first then i looked at the other options. One had expertise the other had armor pen and haste.

this is where i gave up. morale of the story

TLDR: WAIT FOR THE THEORYCRAFTERS. ]]> Darksend http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/darksend/1360-gear-template-wishlist.html 3.0: a druids bag space and the death of agi http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/darksend/1348-3-0-druids-bag-space-death-agi.html Tue, 30 Sep 2008 07:05:38 GMT dodge for druids (lets face it if a rogue can tank mother without offtanks for lashes i mean come on blizzard) but we were already one of the lowest DPS classes, having to use tricks like powershifting to max DPS just to be 100 DPS below shadow priests. WHAT blizzard WHAT was wrong with our agi-> crit rate.]]> almost any druid will have full sets of (while maybe not all of the same content level) resto feral and balance gear. you should see my bank, in fact here you can see my bank thats a lota gear.

So with 3.0 finally coming out, i get to finally destroy the full resto t6 i have full gemmed and enchanted sitting in my banks. and yes, every time i look at it go /sigh why on earth did i spend 1000s of gold gemming and enchanting this stuff. aside from the boots belt and bracers which i wore in my pvp resto set i wore that gear a total of maybe 5 times.

But that aside, at least i have something to spend my badges on. I spent some time with toskk yesterday and some more time with his amazing dps simulator. He never mentioned what crit you need in addition to this, but the rate at which 1 agi is better than 1 str for DPS is now, o god dare i say it, over 9000 AP (for those who do not know, currently it is 1250 AP at 25% crit scaling to 2250 at 50% crit, i have almost 5000 AP in the enh shaman group in my DPS gear at between 45 and 55% crit depending on if i have agi elixirs and agi food on.) Because of the amount of feral AP on weapons, almost any druid in t4 content can gem exclusively for AGI in DPS gear. Now, where this becomes a problem is that my t6 belt boots and bracers, they are also my tanking set. so if i want to min/max i need to regem all my DPS gear with 10 str gems instead of 10 agi gems. do i bid on every t6 piece that drops so i can get DPS gear?

i understand why blizzard changed agi-> dodge for druids (lets face it if a rogue can tank mother without offtanks for lashes i mean come on blizzard) but we were already one of the lowest DPS classes, having to use tricks like powershifting to max DPS just to be 100 DPS below shadow priests. WHAT blizzard WHAT was wrong with our agi-> crit rate. ]]> Darksend http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/darksend/1348-3-0-druids-bag-space-death-agi.html