http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/elyvern/ en Mon, 23 Nov 2009 11:49:05 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.tankspot.com/forums/images/misc/rss.jpg http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/elyvern/ http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/elyvern/1911-how-did-come.html Tue, 03 Feb 2009 05:44:00 GMT I play this game primarily for raiding progression. On a night of wipes, I always believe the next attempt will clinch the fight for us. ... I play this game primarily for raiding progression.

On a night of wipes, I always believe the next attempt will clinch the fight for us.

I'm proud of the fact that I was a key raider in TBC and always got a spot in the hardest fights that secured my guild as one of the best raiding guilds in my server.

During the finalisation of WotLK raid composition at the end of TBC, I got the green light to switch from my mage to prot warrior. It was a natural follow up for me - while I dutifully went on raids with my mage, I was organising weekly BT/MH PUGs for my warrior because that was the only way to do new encounters with him. Being able to switch for this expansion, I thought, was everything I could ask for.

In a span of a few months, everything changed. How did it come to this?

Before I proceed, I must explain a little about my guild's tank set-up:

In this expansion, we have 5 tanks. 2 Prot Wars (including myself), 2 Feral Druids and 1 Deathknight.

We have a static MT, a prot war who has been with the guild since MC days. He's an officer and someone so incredibly quiet, I can count with my fingers the number of times he has typed anything in guild chat over two years. Regardless of the fight, progression or farm, he is always the MT. He and the one of the feral druids chalk up near 100% attendance on all raids and can always be count on to do their job well.

The other feral druid is an officer who has to miss some raids because of his work commitment and was quite happy that I am now a tank to help the raid out. The DK tank is also an officer and a warlock reroll with a tendency for fixed ideas despite everything pointing to the contrary, and has on several occasions, wiped us with inappropriate talent specs and gear set-ups.

With the MT position accounted for, the rest of us rotate in and out of OT/dps roles and raid spots. Last week, my guild downed 25-man Sarth +3D. So the only content left is 10-man Sarth +3D.

Now, I don't know if achievements is a blessing or a curse. It has certainly fostered competition in the guild, even acrimony among the two 10-man groups we run. Good players are interchangably poached by one raid leader or another week after week to be the first in guild to get Undying, Twilight Assist, Twilight Duo, etc.

In an ideal world, both 10-man groups would be equally geared and skilled, their roster carefully decided upon. This is, of course, not an ideal world.

Our 100% attendance Prot MT and feral druid tank for the first group. I am the tank of the other group which has difficulties getting enough people on some weeks. For example, my regular tanking partner is a casual member, a very good prot war whose chances at gear, unfortunately, stops at the 10-man level.

Initially, I didn't believe in folding because I was dealt a bad hand of cards or because I lack progression tanking experience. Neither did my raid leader (who undertook the job when he was left out of the first team). And so bolstered by a sense of camaraderie, our ragtag group pushed on.

The benchmark for us was 10man Sarth + 2D. Our third tank was the feral druid officer who was woefully undergeared because of RNG and the raids he had to miss out. We wiped for 2 weeks, in many cases, had trash repopped, recleared, only to wiped again. When we finally got the kill, it was the best feeling I got out of a WotLK fight, made more so because we were the first group to beat the encounter.

That under my belt, I can imagine how far more difficult it would be for 10-man Sarth +3D. I, for one, couldn't wait to make proper attempts at it, even though I know a proper run with the best chance of success would be to combine the best of both groups into a core raid.

And that was what happened last week. Friday night, the officers handpicked 10 people to go in, including the raid leader and a shadowpriest from my 10-man group. The rest of us, lead by the DK officer, went into Naxx for an attempt at the Dedicated Few achievement.

Our prot MT and regular feral druid made the core of that handpicked group, with a hunter who logged on his DK alt to tank the whelps and fire adds. I got to MT Naxx in a raid comprising of our remaining raiders and casual members.

The run mostly ran fine until we got to Thaddius where we wiped on the enrage timer. As the night wore on, people kept dying to charges and missing the ledge (once myself). Eventually, we gave up on the achievement and brought in more numbers. After that, the fights just got sloppier and sloppier. I lost threat on Kel'Thuzad during MC phases and when I got ice blocked. People died, and by the time we cleared Naxx, I felt absolutely wretched. Wretched because I felt responsible for the deaths, and plainly put, wretched because I was wiping the night in Naxx while attempts were being made on 10-man Sarth + 3D.

Ironic, I know. Am I good enough or am I not? Am I being arrogant in wanting to reach for the sky or am I not? I had no idea. Information was never forthcoming. When I first raided as a tank, I had to ask the most incongruous people (the healing officer) about my assignment and tanking spots. And sometimes, I just didn't get an answer. I learned that when the time for raid start had gone past and I hadn't received an invite, it meant I was benched for the night.

A few nights ago, I got for the first time, the clearest indication of my ability or the lack of it.

I was talking to an officer about the possibility of my switching back to being a mage. My guild prefers to go for a range-heavy raid set-up with only a small number of melee. It's an issue I have been struggling with since I began raiding as a prot war in WotLK. I was benched for the first few weeks while naxx was being cleared, and now I can't be in the group that's going to down 10-man Sarth +3D. Conversely, I was told if I were a mage still, I'd be in for almost every raid night, every progression fight.

The possibility of MT rotations is flat out of the question. (our prot MT tanks Sarth in every raid despite the feral druid having a fully enchanted and gemmed FR set) When I first expressed the desire to MT sometimes, some raiders were incredulous and made snide remarks and continue making them up till today.

But the bottomline was - if I wanted to be in consideration for serious progression, I must switch back to my mage. Our conversation was overheard by the progression feral druid who basically summed it up for me - I was unable to achieve 100% attendance for starters and in short "You are not good enough for progression."

Soon after, I was told kindly and tactfully that I was an exceptional mage, but only a good warrior tank, and the guild already has an exceptional warrior tank.

Tanking is where my heart is now, not dps. And like every other server, there is a glut of raid-ready tanks out there, hoping for spots in guilds that may or may not down the Sarth+3Ds of the game.

I've gotten 2 Proto-Drakes, and a host of other achievements on my warrior. I've powerlevelled a new profession for that extra raiding edge, and spent a fortune on his tanking and dps sets.

Frustrations of playing a tank aside, I have felt very valued as a mage. It's..almost as if I became a different person to the guild the moment I changed classes.

I want to see new content, share the sense of exultation that accompanies a first kill.

I have been given a grace period to decide if I want to ditch my warrior for mage before the guild finalises the raid set-up for Uldaur.

I think I may just quit the game. ]]> Elyvern http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/elyvern/1911-how-did-come.html http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/elyvern/1711-breaking.html Mon, 29 Dec 2008 07:07:46 GMT Hello all, Long time no update. Since the onset of WotLK, changes and new decisions have swept us all along relentlessly. New classes, new zones,... Hello all,

Long time no update. Since the onset of WotLK, changes and new decisions have swept us all along relentlessly. New classes, new zones, new reps to grind, new raids to clear. In this holiday season, I finally have a chance to catch my breath.

I've bitten the bullet and made the switch from mage to warrior. Lots to say about the overall experience, but I shan't, because others have done it and done a better job before me. Instead, I'll talk about what's been going on in my guild. Change is in the air: we have new officers, a new policy of recruiting more raiders than needed and a new semi-DKP loot system. This came about from being burnt by raiding with just 30 people in SWP and having raiders drop out, and not being able to fill the numbers every night. While some of the new people are nice, guild chat sometimes turns into a frat-house galore. It hasn't been pleasant, but things are slowly looking up.

With the soaring interest in tanking this expansion brings, we now have 5 raiding tanks and the effect is I'm now more on rotations than ever. So I've engaged myself in running heroics and clearing achievements.

Do I regret switching mains? A little. Tank spots in any raids are limited in number, and I have been spoilt by the fact that as a former dpser, I could almost get into every raid in TBC. I've also begun to level up my mage and found that I miss the neat and perfect executions that a mage's playstyle brings. But that all goes away when I spend 30 minutes looking for people to do group quests/dungeons with, or try to grind an achievement in old-world content. If you want things done right, do it yourself is my motto. Besides, I can't describe how much I adore the independence and resilience of a tank.

We remain a semi-casual raiding guild, and I was one of the mid-group of people in the guild who hit 80 (1 week from release). 1 more week was spent gearing up before hitting Naxx. Subsequently, I lagged behind the other tanks in terms of gear and experience. On my first 10 and 25-man runs, quite a number of people expected me to get everything right, and hit achievements, which of course wasn't happening.

Easy content is all nice and dandy, but it also makes for intolerant behavior. There is, of course, no excuse for dying to Heigan week after week, but bagging people for hours over incompetence in the first week? Give me a break.

Anyway, I think I’ve found my feet in the recent runs, and had the privilege of main-tanking all the 10 man content. For official heroic raids, I’m designated as off-tank together with a feral druid and a DK. We run a very tight and strict tanking rotation. The MT never changes, and our guild MT is a prot war who has been with the guild since the MC days, and have earned his spot over the years. He’s never missed a single raid, so there was never a need to get another MT.

So far? I've been spend most of my time in 25-man Naxx as a dpsing prot-war. I know I can gripe all I want, but as long as the officers have no confidence in me, nothing is going to happen. This week, I had my break. Official raids have been called off, but some of us decided to organize 25-mans. Without guild leadership around, we managed to take down Sarth + 1 add, and last night, went into Heroic Naxx with a couple of new 80s, a new MT (myself) and a new OT (a fellow prot war from 10-mans).

I made mistakes. Didn’t know to shield wall at webwrap after Maexxna’s enrage, although I warned my OT beforehand to pick her up should I die. I underestimated Anub’Rekhan’s Locust Swarm duration in heroic mode. Luckily, healers kept me alive. And tonight, we’re going to clear Sapphiron and Kel’Thuzad.

Does this mean things are going to change? Does this mean I’d be able to MT in official raids? Not likely. But nobody rolls a tank to output mediocre dps or OT forever. This is something I haven’t been able to get across to many of my guildies who ask “why can’t you be happy OTing?” And as I’ve discovered, the role of an OT in fights like Sartharion actually involves more work than the MT’s. But there will always be that niggling doubt that makes me wonder “Am I good enough?”


Naxx is nothing like SWP pre 3.02, and I admire my guild’s MT for his tenacity to shoulder the responsibility of taking the guild through difficult content. All I ask is for a chance to MT, to know that I’m good enough. I’m not amazing, I’m not a tank’s Second Coming. With more experience and practice I may, but for now, at least I know I can do it.

I've had my chance, and damn, it was satisfying. I can say now I did it. After tonight, I’m going back to dpsing and hopefully get a chance to OT more in 25-man raids. ]]> Elyvern http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/elyvern/1711-breaking.html http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/elyvern/1375-guild-drama.html Mon, 06 Oct 2008 08:20:10 GMT Progression has stalled in both my mage’s and warrior’s guilds. Disconnections during Felmyst have been plaguing us, and a recent spate of hackery... Progression has stalled in both my mage’s and warrior’s guilds. Disconnections during Felmyst have been plaguing us, and a recent spate of hackery and people taking the opportunity to jump ship have resulted in a guild playlet and reshuffling in my warrior’s guild.

It all started out when the GM got hacked. In the middle of the night, the hackers stripped all her characters, cleaned out the guild bank, and transferred her main character off the server. To do that, they had to disband the guild and sell off the gems, recipes and Hearts of Darkness in the auction house. We came on to find ourselves unguilded and were quickly invited into an interim guild with a name similar to the old one. Blizzard specialists said they were working on it, but it would take weeks to get the items back and the old guild name reinstalled.

Since this is a casual raiding guild, there were as many as 300-400 original members on the roster. For a short period, everyone was given the enrolling ability in an attempt to get the regulars back again.

Havok ensued. :(

Some core raiders, most of them in a clique and dissatisfied with how the guild pandered to bad players, opted not to return. They declared retirement and went on to form their own guild, anticipating 10-man raiding in WotLK. Among them include a prot pally who was crucial for many fights posting about selling off his account when in actual fact, he went for a name change, changed guilds and ignored all old acquaintances.

Personally, I have no bone to grind with them. Coming from a progression guild, I’ve been frustrated many times by the way things are done, but this is a casual raiding guild and I’m grateful that my warrior gets to main-tank two days a week for them. My only regret is they were good players and we managed to carry bad players because of them.

More insidious were the new breed of bad players that slipped in through the indiscriminate enrolment. First week back in SSC after the hacking fiasco, we had a mage and a fury warrior that got into the guild by posing as old members. They had the benefit of a doubt because that's just the way the guild works. But then things got interesting that night.

The mage died at every trash pull, and I had to assign a tank to watch her target since she couldn’t keep a mob sheeped. She then whined that the tank was breaking her sheep. During Hydross, she kept nuking during phase changes despite being told not to and typically died one min into every attempt. After several failed tries, including a few where she pulled aggro during phase change and wiped us, we went for Lurker instead. This resulted in more deaths during trash clears and she insisted that a repair bot be put down because her gear was broken.

All this time, the fury warrior kept asking about the loot system and went on and on about the gear that he needed, sulking when he failed to win anything. He managed to wipe the raid twice, first by running straight into a pack and then by neglecting his adds during Lurker. Since my warrior is as decked out as I can make him, I usually log on just before raids and knew little about the ongoing fiasco. I was getting quite riled up by their behaviour and was told they had been given several warnings previously.

An officer finally g-kicked the warrior before our last attempt on Lurker, but fortunately, he didn’t or rather, couldn’t sabotage the fight. We managed to down Lurker and went back for another attempt at Hydross.

This time, the mage spammed the [item]Piccolo of the Flaming Fire[/item] so that nobody could eat and drink before Hydross. And kept on spamming it despite calls to stop. She was g-kicked and in vindictiveness, trained trash down on us. Since we were in resist gear waiting to tank Hydross, we died quickly to the wave of collosus, spore bats and nagas. This was followed by a spate of cursing and name-calling over TS till we had to kick her out of there too. In retrospect, we should've waited till the raid was over to g-kick. :p

A pally from my mage’s guild was tagging along, hoping for the libram from Lurker. It didn’t drop, but he said he laughed himself silly and would come again if such drama was the norm in the guild. I'm sure it's fun, but only if it's not happening in your own backyard. :cool:

Thankfully, that hasn’t happened since, but in an attempt to shore up the hole left by good players, we’ve been actively recruiting, including several warlocks that put out 400 dps. Raiding farmed bosses now take several wipes or happen not at all.

1 month to go – I’m considering throwing the towel and just levelling my alts. And if my application to change mains is successful, I’m going to have to put my warrior back into my main guild anyway. ]]> Elyvern http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/elyvern/1375-guild-drama.html http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/elyvern/1374-difficult-decisions.html Mon, 06 Oct 2008 03:51:42 GMT Raids are winding down. My mage's guild is still stuck at Felmyst, not because of the boss per say, but because of the dreaded DC bug that causes a quarter of the raid to disconnect during the breath phase. I'm one of the unlucky bunch that keeps DCing. And lemme tell ya, it's a grave insult that I keep getting asked to drop my graphic details to the lowest when I just busted my wallet on a new comp (2.80g quad core overclocked, 8g ram, ATI 4870 gfx overclocked).

Yesterday, I raided with no addons, not even Omen, with graphic details set for the lowest and still DCed like it's going out of style.

On top of that, we had several healers quit on us, notably shammies. (why shammies, why?) And so the past month was spent gearing new recruits, a few of whom rode on the BT loot train and then stopped logging on. :confused:

The biggest news around now is the reroll question that has been posted on our guild forums. And it is with great trepidation that I put down Prot Warrior as my desired new main.

Playing a mage that 1-2 shots mobs while grinding has been a pleasure I cannot deny. But I grind quite a bit on my warrior with cast-off fury gear nobody wants, and the pace was, surprisingly, manageable. Ironically, he performs better than my shadow priest who has to sit and drink after 3-4 kills. With the new changes to prot dps, better group threat, and possible dual specs coming up on the horizon, that experience can only improve.

My greatest fear is I'm going to have to whine and beg for the chance to main tank. Our current warrior MT is the poster boy for R-E-L-I-A-B-L-E. He has never missed a single raid in TBC (this is not an exaggeration), and main-tanks every single fight. Previously, we had 2 more prot warriors, but they were mostly relegated to trash tanking. Late TBC content has been better in the sense that there were more fights that require several tanks, but for the first half of TBC, they were simply trash tanks. Class officers have told me that it wasn't because they weren't allowed to MT, but because they didn't want to.

I don’t know how true that is because they’ve both retired, but I know I don't want to go through my raiding career known as a trash tank. What's the point of wanting to improve my gear and techniques if all I do is tank trash? But neither do I want to be more of a whiny bitch than I am now, cajoling, threatening, blackmailing for chances to MT in my main guild. I have a job that makes me miss raids or log on late sometimes, and yeah, yeah real life comes first, but that argument is moot in the face of another tank that never misses a raid.

On the other hand, I remain very divided about staying mage after getting badly burned by class design flaws at the end of TBC. I’ve put in inordinate amounts of time and effort on her (mounts, reps, quests), but I suspect even if mages top dps charts in WotLK, I will always be thinking "gee, I wish I was the tank for this-and-that fight." This is despite the option of sticking to my mage and keeping my warrior for 10-man raids.

So while I sit on my butt waiting for the final number pass on all the classes to be finalised, I've been levelling my druid and paladin.

Druid is now 64 and paladin 46. Surprisingly, druid has been the most enjoyable class to level for me. He slices, dices, juliennes and makes fruit punch! At the moment, he sits at 9,000 hp and 12,000 armor with 27% dodge - far better stats than my warrior had at that level. Taking on 2 elites without heals is not an issue, and needless to say, so is holding several mobs at once.

Pally is on a new account I RAFed with a fellow guild-mate. The RAF system is so amazing that it’s the only reason why I rolled a pally. My last attempt on the alliance side took excruciating days to get to 43 and there he will remain forever and ever, amen. I’m currently ret spec while levelling with an enhancement shammy, but geez, I can’t wait to go prot and aoe-grind.

Out of the 7 classes played so far, warrior and paladin are the 2 hardest classes to level personally. Sheer difficulty plagues one, and sheer boredom the other. But while I marvel at the ease of druid tanking, I chaff at the lack of “oh shit” buttons. I suspect that will become even more pronounced with pally tanking.

A fey thought has recently sprung up. Based on TBC, I should have time to gear up at least 2-3 alts after my main in WotLK and I’m toying with the idea of playing a tanking main, and 3 tanking alts (plus Death Knight).

Somebody stop me! ]]> Elyvern http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/elyvern/1374-difficult-decisions.html http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/elyvern/1096-shoulders-make-tank.html Mon, 04 Aug 2008 03:16:49 GMT We downed Brutallus! Now we can say our Kalecgos kill wasn't a fluke! I did my personal best at 2015 dps for one of the attempts. It's nothing to write home about, but as a mage, it's a milestone in my raiding career. :D

And on to more frivolous news...

My warrior recently got his T5 shoulders and to say that it was an itch I have been longing to scratch is an understatement. I remember seeing my main guild's MTs getting theirs over a year ago and being terribly impressed by the size of those blades. For a long time, I felt like a scrub main-tanking in SSC/TK wearing [item]Mantle of Abrahmis[/item]. Last Saturday, we managed to down Kaz'rogal in our now weekly MH PUG. I lost the roll to [item]Kaz'rogal's Hardened Heart[/item] but won a [item]Pepe's Shroud of Pacification[/item] which I've always felt looks darn awesome too.

Your mileage may differ, but I've always felt that the 3 gear slots that singled out main-tanks at a glance are Shoulders, Shield and Weapon. Taurens and Orcs have the advantage because of the size of their shoulders. (I can fit a gnome rogue in each of mine now!) I guess it's partially why the [item]Bulwark of Azzinoth[/item] is on the dream list of many T6 tanks. The amazing stats matters greatly of course, but who can resist carrying a giant cheese-grater on their back? I know I can't. :o

Onwards to Felmyst! ]]> Elyvern http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/elyvern/1096-shoulders-make-tank.html http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/elyvern/1082-i-dont-have-1-main-3-alts-i-have-4-mains.html Wed, 30 Jul 2008 04:33:23 GMT That's what one of my buddies tells me.

TBC is almost over and I'm pretty sure there are quite a number of people out there who are also intensively grinding alts so they have a nice pool of lvl 70s to choose a new main from when WotLK hits the shelves.

But there is a difference between me and the next person suffering from "alt-tinis". I'm psychologically incapable of abandoning toons. I can't get a toon to 70 and leave them alone. I'd be running instances thinking of getting some blue upgrades, and before I know it, I'm progressing to heroics for badge gear, I'm grinding reps/instances for enchants, gear, profession recipes, epic mounts - effort that people usually reserved only for mains.

I'm going to state firstly that this is not an e-peen post, but rather a "don't do this unless you're insane" kind of warning. Free to laugh at the lengths I go to for my toons if you want to, too.

Fire Mage, 70 - my "main" main and a regular raider in SWP for one of the top guilds on my server. Exalted with every faction in TBC and most of Vanilla-WoW. Resident guild enchanter and tailor.

Prot War, 70 - my "alt" main who MTs for a casual raiding guild in SSC/TK. Exalted with almost every TBC faction, with full epic gear for both tanking and dpsing, all sockets stuffed with epic gems. I organise PUG MH runs so he has access to end-game content. Resident guild engineer.

Shadow Priest, 70 - my original main until I switched to mage. Just finishing up her rep grind. PvE epic-geared and goes on the occasional 25-man raid. Guild's resident flask-spec alchemist.

Demo/Destro Warlock, 70 - my current project, PvE epicced out. I'm grinding mount rep/gear for her at the moment. Resident JCer for guild.

Feral Druid, 18 - my next project. I like tanking so much I thought I'd try classes other than warrior. He's going to be my Leatherworker/Skinner.

I'm highly goal-oriented and independent. If there is an enchanting recipe out there to grind, I'd be doing it, a rep mount I haven't obtained, I'm earning it. All my 70s have epic flying. And I hate going off to the AH for consumables or asking people to help me craft this, make that. So I systematically organise things in such a way that my toons complement each other with their professions.

It's all nice and dandy until I look back at the amount of effort and time I put in. And how most of it will become moot come the new expansion.

The truth is I'm probably going to be changing my main, and it's not going to be any of the toons I have at the moment. Mage is in a truly sorry state right now and I'm not sure they can get out of their doldrums come WotLK. My guild doesn't need another prot war, although my GM promised me that if there is space for any class/spec I want to play, I have that spot.

Deathknight seems to be the best possibilty - a chance to dps/tank like my prot war, although nobody can say for sure how raid-viable they are.

Needless to say, it's going to hurt immensely to drop my old toons, because even a nut like yours truly realises it's not possible to maintain 6 toons at the same time. It doesn't help that I'm highly attached to the toons I play and firmly believe the effort I put into them reflects the kind of person I am.

I'm trying not to think too much about it, but I think I may need to re-evaluate how I play this game. ]]> Elyvern http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/elyvern/1082-i-dont-have-1-main-3-alts-i-have-4-mains.html http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/elyvern/1039-its-such-chore-raid-bt-mh.html Wed, 23 Jul 2008 08:54:31 GMT Currently, my mage's guild is onto Brutallus, with two tries last week trying to hit the enrage timer without any deaths. This upcoming week, we will be tweaking group setups for maximum dps to burn him down.

I burned through 4 dps flasks, 40 destruction pots, 10 flamecaps, several dps oil flasks and stacks of dps food during last week's attempts. All in all, I must've spent around 400-500g on repairs and consumables. Still, I enjoyed it immensely. It's been a while since I'd face boss encounters this challenging. (the last memorable one was Vashj waaay before attunements were removed).

Our eventual goal is to finish SWP before WotLK. But we can't spend the whole raiding week in SWP because of the high cost involved and some people can still do with gear in late MH/BT.

The problem is we basically shard everything that drops from the first few bosses in both instances just to get to the last important few. We've had awful luck with Illidan/IC drops so far. 2 Glaives but 0 Skulls of Gul'dan.

It's come to the point where clearing the first half of BT has become a painful chore. The difficulty level between SWP and MH/BT makes the latter an absolute exercise in boredom to run after a while. If you're curious, yes, I'd rather wipe every night in SWP than go through the motions in BT/MH. As a result, people are now toying with the idea of switching specs from healers to dps, swapping toons with each other just to make things interesting.

It does make me wonder - there's got to be alot of guilds out there that's in the same position as well. How do you hold interest with content you are absolutely bored out of your mind on but must keep running for various reasons?

My guild has a very strict ruling: no alts on official raids. Before I joined them, there was guild drama where people were gearing up alts at the expense of their mains causing that rule to be imposed. On rare occasions, we do bring a well-geared healer alt to supplement healing lack, but if you're one of those crazy players with well-geared mains needing nothing, and aspiring alts dying to do new content (like yours truly), you're out of luck.

I also know of other top-raiding guilds that are less strict on alts, gearing them up and bringing them in on occasions where particular classes are needed. When my guild is short of players, we either change zones, or call a raid off.

Both styles have their merits and demerits. As for this poor raider here, if I have to raid a few more months of BT/MH on my mage, I think I'll go mad.

Something's got to change, somehow. ]]> Elyvern http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/elyvern/1039-its-such-chore-raid-bt-mh.html http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/elyvern/1006-sanctity-tank-target-relationship.html Thu, 17 Jul 2008 09:58:58 GMT If you go HUH!?, you pretty much mirrored my response when I saw this posted on my warrior’s guild forums. The guildie who coined that phrase was... If you go HUH!?, you pretty much mirrored my response when I saw this posted on my warrior’s guild forums.

The guildie who coined that phrase was a prot pally assigned to tank the first guardian to be burned down in a Lurker fight. He simply couldn’t hold snap-aggro, causing the mob to turn around, attack the dps and cleaving several bystanders to death.

I was main-tanking the fight, and I’d jump out of the water to assist before Lurker reappeared. Torn between letting others do their job and saving people, I only intervened and taunted when the mob ran loose, but by then, we’d have lost several people already. After a few wipes, the raid leaders tweaked to this and assigned me to tank the first add.

The pally became very emo after that. However, he did a good job later tanking murlocs at Morogrim and we gave him due credit to make him feel better.

The issue cropped up again in a forum thread later where I posted on group tanking for trash waves in Mount Hyjal, and how warriors/druids must taunt mobs off the pally. He posted to say he felt better knowing that’s how it’s done and how he would never steal aggro from another tank because of the “sanctity of the tank-target relationship.”

That pretty much took me aback. :confused:

As a tank, I shouldn’t be losing aggro on any mob, trash or boss. If I did, I’d be darn hoping that another tank manages to grab it before people die. Besides, mistakes can and do happen in the heat of battle. If my mob gets taunted off, I’d just grab another nearby, or taunt it back.

In a situation where I am tanking two mobs awaiting dps to burn them down, and my fellow tank is freed of his, I’d welcome him to take one off me. Conversely, if I’m just tanking one mob fine and dandy, and another tank persists in taunting it off me, I may get a little miffed. But if I lose threat to another tank who isn’t taunting outright, then the fault obviously lies with me, since I couldn’t generate the threat needed to hold aggro despite the mob whaling on me, giving me a full rage bar.

Raid tanking is a team effort. Being in a casual raiding guild, my warrior rarely gets to raid with the same people all the time. The tank roster changes every raid and there are nights when we have as many as 7 tanks attending.

But I still hold to the principle that as long as we keep everyone alive, we’d have done our job. Which makes me wonder intially if things would've gone better if I had taken control of the guardian right at the start? My final stance is: he was assigned that role and he should be given a chance. At the very least, he needed to see firsthand for himself how important his role is and how he needed to improve on it. Or perhaps, it was just a bad idea to assign a pally to the first add, since I've read that they have difficulties generating snap aggro.

Nonetheless, I have heard horror stories of possessive tanks that throw a big fuss when someone "steals" their targets. Unfortunately, the rules of group tanking varies from one person to another, one raid to another, and it's rarely explained to any new tank in the group. Sometimes, you just have to feel your way and find your niche as a new tank in a raid.

In my opinion, personal ego really has no place. On the other hand, some respect for another person’s role may go a long way towards creating that relationship you’d come to cherish with your fellow tanks. ]]> Elyvern http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/elyvern/1006-sanctity-tank-target-relationship.html http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/elyvern/1005-art-pugging-mount-hyjal-part-3.html Thu, 17 Jul 2008 08:58:45 GMT Off to the Horde Encampment, and needing to replace several healers that had to leave. No problem. I was more worried about mana users not having a... Off to the Horde Encampment, and needing to replace several healers that had to leave. No problem. I was more worried about mana users not having a single shred of shadow resist on them. Against Kaz'rogal - that's going to be interested.

Now up to Anetheron, the trash packs have been relatively straightforward. But here we're getting frostwyrms and gargoyles. This was when things started getting messy. The range dps pulled the gargoyles down to the ground by outranging them, except some pulled their mobs to Thrall, and others towards the Tauren camp. Since they were so spread out, we had to dps them down one by one. Luckily, we managed to get most down before the next wave.

Compounded confusion meant that by the time the last wave arrived, we had a number of dead people. We shackled one mob, got the raid to retreat and sent a rogue ahead to distract. The rogue did his job wonderfully despite last minute instructions and a hunter MDed to me as I prepared to kite him past the Tauren camp before ending in front of Thrall.

Kaz'rogal warstomped, and gibbed me in two seconds.

Turned out the healers forgot that I was going to kite him and were running around wondering "Where is the tank? Where is the tank?"

The RL reminded everyone “Remember, it’s not a wipe. It’s a chance at more rep, more trash drops!” Real smooth, Warpath, I’m sure you can sell fridges to Eskimos. ;) After replacing a couple of dpsers, we started the timer again. All went well until the gargoyle wave. My fellow prot warrior and I were trailing gargs on our tails as we arrived at the front to watch the pally tank die to a pack of abominations. After that everything else went pretzel-shaped and we finally decided to call it.

Thoughts in the Aftermath

In retrospect, choosing to do Mount Hyjal over Black Temple seems to be the right choice, since Rage Winterchill was such a pushover and a PUG definitely need morale boosters. The trash repetition got tedious especially after wipes, but the chance of trash drops kept people going. It’s not a wipe, remember, it’s more rep and loot. Some of my guildies raised a premature question about Archimonde attempts and what happens if a guild decides to ninja him. I honestly doubt we’d get that far in a long time, considering we cannot impose shadow resist requirements which means we can’t guarantee downing Kaz’rogal every week.

It also got me thinking about the amount of FR that a prot war needs to tank infernals. With a paltry 270 FR, I was resisting a full half of the fire damage. My rage generation was about just right for the encounter though. It seems to me that feral druids can afford to max out their resist because they gain more rage from their attacks. If I were to stack more FR as a prot war, however, I may actually end up rage starved. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

As I mentioned before, I am also considering stacking EH over avoidance for Rage Winterchill. Kaz’rogal’s memorable warstomp also seems to favour more EH, but as a tauren, I can outrange the warstomp when I get him into tanking position. Avoidance still seems like a good idea since the fight involves surviving as long as possible with NPCs helping to burn him down.

All in all, it was a very interesting experiment. We were more successful than we’d imagine, and the result is we’re going to give it another try this weekend. ]]> Elyvern http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/elyvern/1005-art-pugging-mount-hyjal-part-3.html http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/elyvern/999-art-pugging-mount-hyjal-part-2.html Tue, 15 Jul 2008 15:21:24 GMT I was dragged muzzily out of sleep by an alarm clock that was rapidly running out of battery for beeping, oh, probably the last few hours. Yep. ... I was dragged muzzily out of sleep by an alarm clock that was rapidly running out of battery for beeping, oh, probably the last few hours.

Yep.

I overslept.

On the day I get my first chance to tank Mount Hyjal with a pug raid that depends on us getting it right the first time for any chance of repetition.

I logged on as fast as I could, got invited, started inviting my guild's alts that signed up. Crisis adverted?

30 mins after the raid should have started, we only had 18 people, and were woefully short of healers. Well, it's a pug, what do you expect, right? The usual spiel happened - 2 well-geared alts pulled out unexpectedly, 1 went MIA. A guildie offered his vent server as a favour, I logged on and found that MIA alt who was, thankfully, a healer, and hustled him to log on.

Nope, still short of people. Doing some last minute recruitment, we got a shadow priest, 2 rogues. By now, I was getting desperate. We had 5 healers, far short of the minimum 7, and still had 2 dps slots unfilled. The last thing I wanted to do was spam LFM on the trade channel.

I finally used my trump card and asked if anyone in my tank's guild wanted to come. I loathed to do that because that guild has Mount Hyjal slated for Monday, and I couldn't justify poaching any well-geared raider from a guild run. In the end, I asked that only people who couldn't make it for the Monday run join us. The enthusiasm took me quite aback. Out of the clamour of voices, I got my pick of a highly-geared holy priest who genuinely couldn't raid weekdays because of a job change, an amazing resto druid, and a destro warlock who insisted he could raid Monday on his equally well-geared mage. His reasoning was arguably flawed, since a less-geared warlock can easily outdps a better-geared mage. (I know bitterly first-hand with my mage main and warlock alt) But the need for the right classes eventually made me capitulate.

All set!

We got down to the instance, summoned everyone, buffed up and started the timer.

A prot pally from my tank's guild (also an alt himself) and another prot war were my fellow tanks. Despite not having played with each other before, we worked together beautifully - prot warriors grabbing abominations off the pally, 2 hunters kiting ghouls to the NPCs at the back, the sole mage frost nova-ing and sheeping at the right time. Thank god for people doing their homework! Some dps died, mostly warlocks not watching their SoC aggro, but we cleared through 8 waves of trash with most of the raid alive.

The real test laid in front of us in the form of Rage Winterchill coming up the road. I switched to my carefully formulated gear, and went into position. He began by ice-tombing a healer who promptly went down. I was next on his list. Not a problem, I had some decent threat by then, and healers were already focusing on me.

The raid leader didn't ask anyone to equip their pvp trinket because we expected the healers to be able to outheal the damage like we do on our mains. BIG mistake. Bam! 2 dps and then another healer went down. I gritted my teeth and kept concentrating on tanking.

I started noticing about my rage generation as I got into the cycle. I've read that Rage hits like a pansy and many tanks actually stand in Death & Decay for more rage. There were periods when I was rage starved, but when standing in D&D, I ended up with more rage that I could use, while my HP pool dwindled to dangerous levels. Note to self: reduce avoidance and pile more EH next round. That's probably the best strat considering I didn't know most of the healers in the raid. Nonetheless, I must say tanking Rage Winterchill is probably not one of the highlights of a tank's career.

All the while around me, people kept dropping like flies. There was only 1 druid (my tank's resto guildie) for battle ressing, although the shammy healers tried to pop the moment they died.

Rage Winterchill finally went down with 13 people alive in the raid. We ressed the dead, [item]Cuffs of Devastation[/item] and [item]Tracker's Blade[/item] dropped and were promptly snapped up.

On to Anetheron!

Went through trash with the same efficiency. This time, dpsers were more restrained and less people died. At the end of the last wave, I put on my paltry FR gear and sat at 277 FR buffed with pally aura and Motw and 17k hp flasked/raid buffed and went to my assigned spot in front of Jaina. All this while, I was praying to myself that it would be enough.

I shouldn't have been too worried because it was the least of our problems...

The other prot warrior MTed Anetheron, all dpsers stood around him in a circle. The first infernal lands and the target died on the spot. It aggroed a healer, I ran up, people promptly scrambled away...in the wrong direction. By the time I pulled the infernal back to my spot, 3 people were down. I started building threat while the RL yelled at range dps to burn down the infernal. No chance. Before the first infernal was at half health, the second one popped. More went down as I had to drag the first with me to grab the second.

Suffice to say we all died in glorious fire.

We corpse-ran back, rebuffed and reminded people that they had to stay alive and clear a path for the infernaled person to run towards me while I meet them in the middle. I also made it clear dps was awful and we absolutely had to burn down the first infernal before another popped.

Round two.

Better this time. Although the second infernal still popped before the first died, I only had to tank two mobs for a few seconds. One of my best healers died twice in a row from infernals but thankfully a warlock soul-stoned him and he got brezzed. It turned out that the majority of the raid kept concentrating on dpsing down Anetheron because by the time the third add spawned, he was dead. I suppose there are many ways to skin a cat...

[item]Glimmering Steel Mantle[/item] and [item]Pillar of Ferocity[/item] dropped and we didn't have a single holy pally or a feral druid in the raid. Now if [item]The Unbreakable Will[/item], it would've been a different story. :rolleyes:

In the end, a ret pally and the only druid (my resto guildie) won the loot. The fact that my tank's guild hadn't be able to down Anetheron yet meant that he'd probably get lynched when the other feral druids find out what he'd won. :D

Well, we did much better than we'd expected! WIth 277 FR, I resisted basically half the fire damage while still leaving me with a healthy chunk of rage. The healer assigned me told me I should've taken more damage cos he was so bored during the fight. I'll take that into advisement, Painadoll. :p

Onwards to the horde encampment and Kaz'rogal, and to face the fact that 90% of our mana users had absolutely no shadow resist gear!

To be continued... ]]> Elyvern http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/elyvern/999-art-pugging-mount-hyjal-part-2.html http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/elyvern/990-art-pugging-mount-hyjal-part-1.html Mon, 14 Jul 2008 15:53:51 GMT It was a Saturday night. I'd just finished a TK raid on my warrior. Being a progression night, we kept wiping on A'lar. Alot.

I was extremely frustrated and felt the need to do something, including entertaining delusions of grandeur. In the end, I found myself hanging around Shattrath to chat with some friends in a BT guild.

The conversation meandered and eventually went something like, "I bet I could tank MH/BT on my warrior." (me)

"I bet I could dps there on my alt warlock."

Somehow in the chaos that ensued, the notion of pugging Mount Hyjal was born.

From the start, we decided we were going to make a raid comprising mostly of well-geared alts of raiders that have done the zone before. Granted, Zul'aman and badge gear gives us a chance to attempt Teir 6 content, but alts will always be alts, and there was no need to make things harder by bringing greenhorns to the raid.

One of my friends from the BT guild will lead the raid on his warlock. I'm to be the main tank, and another friend a healer. Woohoo, we have the Holy Trinity!

Now to find 22 more people to participate in our madness.

We got to work posting on our guild forums for interested alts. Held daily meetings to see what classes we lacked. Hammered out the loot system. I posted on Tankspot forums trying to fine-tune my gear. All this while biting our fingernails hoping that we'd get the right numbers.

On Friday morning, it finally dawned on us that we're good to go. We got a core group of healers, tanks and dpsers. There will be the inevitable replacements but as long as we got a bunch of people that knew their job, there was a chance of success.

Friday evening came, we sat down and finalised our roster. Then the raid leader says, "what about the infernal tank?"

"What infernal tank?"

"We're going to need a tank with some Fire Resist to handle Anetheron's adds."

"Umm...don't look at me. I don't have FR gear!"

"No FR gear? What kind of tank are you!?"

"..."

So at 12.00am on Saturday morning, I was dragged to tank Karazhan for badges to buy a few pieces of epic FR gear. I've had an exhausting week at work, and I'd just finished a 4-hour raid in Sunwell Plateau. Fortunately, there was another decently geared prot war in the raid, so I begged to be the offtank.

Things went well at the beginning, we downed Atunmen, Moroes, Maiden, Opera, then made our way to Nightbane. Suddenly, our main healer and 1 of the dpsers had to leave. The raid leader said no problem, got some replacements in very little time. Little did we know he logged on his main in Shattrath and just spammed for any healer and dps he could find.

After the main tank died several times, I offered to tank. More people had to leave, more replacements came in. Then just before an air phase ends, the druid healer spammed Lifebloom on me. The result was I couldn't hold aggro even with a shield slam and a devastate. Wipe #5. Next attempt, all the healers stood on charred earth and died. I followed soon after from lack of heals. Wipe #6. All this time, a rogue keeps yelling at me to "Tank it at the top! Tank it at the top!" plus expletives about how I wasn't doing my job. I finally lost it and told him to shut up and then told the raid leader I was crashing.

The Hyjal raid was starting in 4 hours' time, and I was going to be absolutely spazzed. I had enough badges to buy 1 piece of epic resist gear and plundered the AH for a few more greens. Finally, I set the alarm clock, crashed and went dead to the world.

More coming in Part 2... ]]> Elyvern http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/elyvern/990-art-pugging-mount-hyjal-part-1.html http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/elyvern/985-salutations.html Mon, 14 Jul 2008 10:37:44 GMT Hello all,

First off, a little introduction about myself - I'm from Singapore, a television producer and I've been playing this game since open beta.

Rolled Alliance on a US server, and chose of all things - a NE hunter as my main. In my defense I just want to say I didn't know they were going to be the "retard" class of the game. I finally retired a year later (after a priest reroll) because I couldn't get into any raiding guild that didn't require me to wake up at 4am to raid, oh, and playing a population 70% of which were NE hunters probably didn't help either.

So when the first oceanic server rolled in, woohoo, I jumped back on the bandwagon and went Horde. Started a mage, managed to catch the end of vanilla wow raiding MC/BWL before TBC hit. After some hiccups, I joined a serious raiding guild and began making up for lost time. Currently, my guild is in SWP smacking our heads against Brutallus.

You must be wondering - so she plays a mage and she's started a blog on TankSpot...

Well - the short is I got disillusioned with mage. I shan't QQ majorly here, but I fell back more and more on alts - especially my little cow warrior. He was a mere 42 when TBC hit, and I just took him to 70 as a matter of fact. Having played a raid healer, raid dpser, I decided why not? I'll make a tank.

Well, I got addicted to tanking.

It was a nice being an alt tank in a raiding guild. My MTs were often tired from raiding, so I got to tank every 5-man and more. And after that, heroics, and then Kara, and then ZA...

But I was not satisfied, pretty soon I got everything I wanted from Kara, and I wanted more content! MOAR! Finally, I removed my warrior from my main's guild and joined a casual raiding guild as one of their MTs.

So now, I raid 6 days a week, I burn through flasks and pots like they are going out of fashion, I get stressed trying to juggle a real life at the same time - but the up side is I see old fights in entirely new light, I'm interested in the game again. It's an entire new field out there.

Will I ever switch mains? Not at the moment. I love my main guild alot and they geared up my mage very well, I'd be deucely ungrateful to leave them. Besides, SWP is exciting stuff.

My casual guild comprises of mostly great people, lots of jokes and social interaction going on. There are no attendence requirements. We're currently up to 3/4 TK, 3/6 SSC and 1/4 MH.

So while I sit on the fence here juggling 2 raiding toons, I hope to inject some insight here about doing things the other way. (I know most blogs here have tank mains and dps/healer alts). Send me a postcard should I end up in a mental asylum, but in the meantime, I hope you'll enjoy reading my blog!

-elvernia/hharumlil ]]> Elyvern http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/elyvern/985-salutations.html