TankSpot - Blogs

ZA as a MT

Dranchor — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 21:38:59 GMT

A little late to post, but the Monday ZA run was an interesting one to say the least. First of all, it was the first Zul'Aman I got to Main Tank. Usually we have a paladin or a warrior to main tank it, but tonight I was "chosen" for the job. The fact that we barely managed to get a group together probably had something to do with that, but anyway.

We were aiming for as many chests as we could get, along with a full clear. Our guild has been successful in getting three chest, but unfortunately we've never made it to the bear. The run was led by two priests and me, and the leader decided we should aim for Nalorrak first. We killed the trash, but at the very last trash wave, for some reason my NumLock was on, I marked the mobs (with my NumPad), pulled without checking and found myself in the midst of an mildly uncomfortable nearly non-controlled chaos. Needless to say, we wiped. First try on Nalorrak then, we wiped because my offtank pulled aggro the second second of the fight. I assumed he'd be tanking humanoid phase and I'd be tanking bear phase then, so I stopped generating threat. Wrong decision, apparently, because there Nalorrak went and so did two of our dps'ers before I got hold if the naughty troll again. Needless to say, it was a wipe because we were dps-starved. We of course managed to get Nalorrak down after, and he dropped my [Jungle Stompers].

Next target was Eagle, he went down in one try, same with Dragonhawk and Lynx. Without silly wipes, we'd have got at least three chests, so our Raid Leader was a tad pissed off. I, on the other hand, was rather excited at the thought of tanking Malacrass and Zul'jin. Malacrass wasn't really difficult tank-wise. One could argue that picking up the adds as the off-tank is the harder tanking part of the fight. There was no paladin so I didn't have to get out of Consecration and stuff - oneshot. The even better new: I got the [Battleworn Tuskguard]

At this point, we were quite ready to go for Zul'jin. We noticed, however, that we didn't have melee dps. This is necessary for the tornado phase, so we got our guild's usual Raid Leader and another Officer - an arms warrior and a hunter. On the first try I put my regular EH set on, since it was my first time and Zul'jin's not really an easy boss. I was a bit slow with picking him up at phase transitions and our Raid Leader was telling me my threat generation was sub-standard. I was a bit angry, because I was just doing my regular rotations, using Heroic Strike when rage permitted. Anyway, we wiped at 6% or so, and I put my threat gear on. I paid more attention during transitions, spammed more HS and Zul'jin went down. The Raid Leader told me my threat was way better, which made me a happy tank. Along with the [Chestguard of the Warlord] drop, of course.

This last drop caused me to think deep about the choice of chest to wear. I already have [Chestplate of Stoicism], and still in doubt which one I should use. I consulted the forums here and my current plan is to use the Warlord for Threat and Stoicism for EH/Avoidance.

So, our ZA went from Zero to Hero and I made a solid impression tanking. Which pleases me.

Greetings from a drunk festival at the top of Zul'Aman with loud, spine-cramping music,
Captain Dranchor the Enduring.

Screw you, Blizzard

Edge — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 18:51:20 GMT

Right now, I am so angry with the world. The new "Recruit a friend"-feature is just damn ridiculious.

I hate it, I hate the game and I hate Blizzard right now. What the hell, my friend made it to level 50 in roughly 30 hours. 30 HOURS!? This is just screwed up, triple XP while leveling with your recruit ...

It's like giving people with too much money a couple free 70s, because this thing is active for 90 days.

Sure, some might say "Yeah well Blizzard wants to give some players a chance to re-invite old friends that maybe played before and they want to start again for WotlK and they need to get their toon up fast." I agree, I like that idea but one can easily get a toon to 70 without triple XP and a damn free level up every 2 levels.

Sorry for ranting but right now this makes me want to punch someone in the face. Not literally someone but I'd really like to break something right now. And sorry for the harsh title.

Pala Tanking

BoJlk — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 17:59:36 GMT

Hi,
I'm entirely new to this Blog thing but had to share my experience and see if anyone had the same.

I have a Paladin Tank at it's early 65 level and geared for tanking, and i love tanking.
Feel little overpowered for now having 10k health and 482 defense which can be considered a good stats at this level.

Paladin tanking easier then Warrior tanking on multiple targets, and sometimes it feels like playing a hunter (easy at everything).

But then i forget that you can't join a party as other class and let the tank lead, just worry about you mana while chating on a guild chat.
As Tank you need to lead 4 people to victory or even failure but still you led them there. You need to know every mob and encounter, it's a really something i missed when started tanking thinking there will be someone marking and all you need to do is stand in the front acting like a hero.

Funny thing how this game works, you change the class and Role in the party and you start playing the game agian like it's you first day. (it's strange after 2.5 years) when you feel you know everything and have nothing left to feel for that game.

Tanking Drak

Thireas — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 17:00:52 GMT

Tanking Drak doesn't so much involve tanking. It involves sucking conflags and letting the rest of the group kill him.

That is all.

Changing topic

Keza — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 13:49:38 GMT

I had this on the tail-end of a response to one of Veneretio's posts.

Changing topic:

There was a post or guide or something that had a warrior talent spec designed to help tank aoe trash mobs, if anyone remembers where it is could you pop a link in a pm for me please or repost it.

Someone found this for me...of all classes a pableep.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=LV0eZxxuZsEtohMzcco

Another tank to da list!

Narshe — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 08:55:38 GMT

Yesterday I dinged my druid to 70...
Now, trying to figure what bind use on each ability >.<

Aldor elevator 0 - Topanga 1 !!!! :D

Disasterous weeks and full circles

Alent — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 07:39:32 GMT

So, in the WoW Week of Tuesday~Tuesday, it was a near full circle of emotion and calamities.

It started off with a friend making a mistell. A disasterous mistell that turned what should've been a fun karazhan into an absolutely dead silent disaster of a run that made me consider not going back this week.

Just when I thought the week was doomed to be "made of fail", I found out that the douche of a raid leader I almost gquit over was on vacation. Naturally, I put my raiding vacation on hold and hauled my ass to the BT stone at epic Druid speed. I got to MT Naj'entus for the first time and then... my internet died during supremus trash. SHIT. I had them replace me rather than try to nurse a bad connection.

Thursday went great. I was supposed to finish kara with my kara group, but I got home earlier than I expected and went to the BT stone on autopilot. You know you have a problem when your conditioned response is to haul ass to a summoning stone for a raid you never intended to attend in the first place, but yeah, that's what I did. My first time seeing Bloodboil, and my first time seeing bloodboil die. The entire raid was glad I made it, as we'd been doing bloodboil with two tanks and the third tank made it go so much smoother.

RoS also died, and drama ran rife with the guild thursday and friday. what kind of drama I don't know, because it was all in whispers to the leaders, who were all feeling the strain. The strain got worse, and worse... and then saturday's joint raid happened.

Saturday... bloody sucked.

So, this great husband and wife couple used to lead our saturday raids. They've been dealing with the logistics of moving to another state, they're both guild officers, they'd both been strained thin by whatever drama was going on. They started invites, they filled the raid, they were barely paying attention. We barely got some of our core members in while some people we usually don't take had been early on invites. Most of us were kinda puzzled... But ignored it. However... A few of the people in the raid decided to be pests.

Particularly, they wanted silly things like the boomkin moved from the tank group into the caster group and the enh shaman in the caster group put up with the melee, the shadow priest put with the lesser geared mages, etc. Basic group synergy. They weren't making unreasonable requests... but they were being pests about it and the raid leader, already subject to alot of stress... blew up.

I think the exact words were...

/RW STFU or this raid is OVER.

Offended, the two pests ragequit the raid.

We replaced them, but to give a depictation of where we stood... We were down our best warrior already as a result of tuesday. We'd just lost our best warlock and best shadow priest to a four sided temper tantrum. We were missing a fair number of our regular attendees anyhow.

And the raid leader, about halfway through lurker trash, decided she wasn't going to mark anymore and snapped at the tanks for not marking.

I leaned back, thought about it for 30 seconds.

I marked, yelled "Tanks and mages up!" and we started chain pull as fast as I could mark and the healers could rez dead players.

Before I knew it, I was leading the raid, and all the actual raid leader was doing was handling loot. Both she and her husband were grateful, because they just couldn't deal with it. They'd been pushed to the max, they were stressed, mentally out of it and needed the support. We weren't our normal successful selves. But I pushed us to get lurker and Leo down.

It was at this time that it dawned on me. I don't even know why it went over my head for so long, I'm usually more emotionally responsible than that. The leaders need friends, too. I'd been mildly ticked at all of them for I dunno how long, but it all shedded away in a few moments when I recognized their weakness and decided to help them.

Unfortunately, I couldn't stop the madness that ensued. We lost our shadowpriest as a result. He started throwing insults and the leadership decided as a whole that that was not cool. And then the couple who lead the joint raid stepped down, handing it to myself and the ranking officer from my pally's guild. The majority of the guild was extremely down sunday.

We all showed up at the BT stone with a furious drive to down mother shahraz, half the guild geared in SR gear. We decided to clear hyjal instead, and return for shahraz monday.

4/5 hyjal, no archy kill even though we've had him on farm for 2 months. Meh. Still no T6 helm for me.

Monday, we cancelled lolgruulbag, outfitted everyone in SR gear, and charged into BT for blood. Moods were still sour from the weekend, Saturday's bad taste + people getting bitchy about archimonde not dying.

We kept at it, and Shahraz died. The entire Spirit of the guild lifted. We'd gone through an extremely dark time, thought we were in danger of collapsing or losing the bulk of our raid force, and here we were, screaming our heads off in excitement.

We all rushed out of the instance, Sold it to a sunwell guild for more hearts of darkness,

Tuesday, in my pally's guild, we had an ok kara. Made it to prince, downed him but had to skip some stuff since we were in bag's lair for way too long. (Lots of fun misadventures.) Vent chatter was friendly and full of laughter, which made it go faster.

Best moment of the night: our feral druid suddenly going Smeagol on us. The guy has the voice down... perfect. Just creepy hearing him break out in the "our only wish, to catch a fish, so juicy sweet" song during netherspite trash. XD

Then, tonight, all the trials and tribulations of my druid's guild washed away. We dropped Naj, Supremus, Akama and Gorefiend in record time, and pushed on for an RoS kill. We'll be going back tomorrow for Bloodboil then Mother, with the possibility of seeing Illidari Council (maybe even killing them? XD).

One of the best raids we've ever had, perfectly smooth, no yelling, etc. Everyone had a blast.

I'd been thinking about leaving, but at this rate, I think this guild that nearly drove me out suddenly became home. We'll have to see how things work out when the regular leader gets back from his 2 week vacation in europe.

Addendum on Hit

Kamani — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 17:29:37 GMT

Addendum on Hit and Threat

I'm writing this because I am very opinionated when it comes to gearing/geming for hit/threat throughout the course of a tanking career. A majority of the questions that this site receives are related, in one way or another, to hit rating and/or threat. And, unfortunately, a lot of feedback is incorrect(in this cow's opinion.) Also, I would much rather just respond to the daily influx of "I R NID HIT RAITGN" threads with rather then an individualized response.

The first thing I want to address is that threat scales rather favorably throughout BC. When you are starting Karazhan, heroic strike is superfluous. Warlocks generate something like 1 threat per 1.6 damage. And Warlocks are generally the most threat capped class, so they will be what my comparisons focus on. So, theoretically, if a Warlock is putting out 500 DPS then he is putting out 312 TPS. Now I haven't done the math, but I'm pretty sure you can white hit with an occasional Shield Slam and put out more then 312 TPS. Scale it up, 1000 DPS = 624 TPS. A bit higher, but still very easily passed by a tank who knows what he is doing. That also doesn't take into account the fact that most classes, including Warlocks, can drop their threat somewhat. And even then, a Warlock can ride at 129% of your threat and not pull aggro. So putting out 624 TPS given a 1000 DPS lock is much more then required.

It starts to get rough as your Warlocks start getting half/full BT gear. Think Teron Gorefiend. A Warlock that does 2000 TPS puts out 1250 TPS. Keeping up with that Warlock is basically impossible without intentionally gearing for threat. At this point, threat gear is important. You should (cough*self advertising*cough) download the lovely tanking spreadsheet that models TPS for you via (http://www.tankspot.com/forums/theor...readsheet.html.) Use it, or your own calculations if you don't want to DL it(/cry), to figure out the most effective and efficient way to increase your threat.

Effective and efficient... that brings me to my next point. How should one build their gear for threat? I won't get into the intricate details because that has been done in multiple stickies on Tankspot. I will go over a few infrequently mentioned ideas.

First thing I want to say is that your best in slot piece should focus on survivability. IE if you get T6 chest, it should be gemmed with three 15 stam gems(or avoidance, if you so desire). Granted this rule varies at time, but I'd rather tell my DPS to slow down a bit since chances are they will listen to you more then if you were to ask a boss to stop hitting so hard.

Now..what items specifically. Moreover, which stats. The value chain is: Expertise > Hit > BV > ArP ~ Haste ~ Crit > Strength > Agility ~ AP. Your primary goal for your threat set should be to reach 5.6% expertise. After that, hit = expertise for threat, but still choose expertise in a tie due to it's damage reduction value.

Something I want to address is shields. I see alot of people talk about switching out shields for threat sets. Something that should be done rarely. A shield is BY FAR your most valuable piece of armor. It scales much faster then every other slot. Downgrading your shield one tier is comparable to downgrading 5 or 6 pieces of armor one tier. One example is going from Illidan's shield to Kaz'rogal's shield for the 21 hit, a half tier downgrade. Basically the smallest jump you can make in shield switching. You still give up 500 or so armor and the 2000 armor proc for 21 hit. There are plenty of other ways to get 21 hit for alot less of a trade off then 500 armor and the proc. The first example that comes to my head is the BT gun vs the GBKD. Going from ilvl 141 to 95(?). You trade 1 stamina and 20 dodge for 10 hit. So going from the beginning of BC to the end of BC in itemization on a gun provides a better upgrade then going from Hyjal to BT. Do the math before switching shields.

The last thing I can think of to say at the moment(I had more, but I'm drawing a blank) is in response to tanks feeling the need to gear for threat to make up for their own deficiency. If you aren't in BT and are having problems holding threat over your DPSers, the problem is your ability, not your gear. Xavastrasz wrote an incredible guide on how to generate threat (http://www.tankspot.com/forums/tanks...ng-threat.html). Study this guide if you are having problems holding threat over anybody not doing 1500/1600 DPS. Study it even if you can hold threat, the more you know the better.

Downhill! >.<

Ukyo — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 16:23:04 GMT

I haven't slept in a few hours (i slept like 2 maybe 3 hours in the night xP) so excuse any errors in typing or w/e since my brain is functioning like 1/4 of what it should.

It's been really weird being back in the same server with people i cut ties with because of the transfer. Feels like there's some resentment on my back because i left what it was a pretty fun guild and now it's filled with strangers. I'm not in the guild, but still feels pretty weird from outside. Every friend that's talking to me keeps telling me to join the guild, but looking at it from a "needs" pov, why should i, it's not like they really need another warrior in the lines.

PvP wise i'm back in the same battlegroup, Vindication, only good thing that came out of it was that i don't run into double glaive rogues anymore, yay :D!

Been doing arenas with a shammy friend, not very well geared, and they instagib him a lot, when they're not instagibbing me and cc'ing him. I'm about to start counting to more than 2 for ratings and such, i need to finish my honor farming so i can pick up my lock for WotLK.

I want to raid, but there seem to be an awful excess of warriors in the server, so no one needs a tank nor a fury warrior, i'm pretty much screwed there for now. Throwing apps to 1 guild at a time but still nothing. Maybe i'll have to suck it up and throw an app to my friends' guild, which i'm still reluctant to do so ("Will carry alts for gear, pst" should work, right?).

Changing the subject, i was looking at the trailer for DD's movie, and i noticed a link in the end, so i went there and i found out the most amazing thing i've ever seen in my life (exaggerations ftw!):

http://www.playlist.com/

Now, i don't know if anyone of you knows this page, but it was the first time i saw it, and i went nuts over it! Being the music freak that i am, i think it's a pretty good project, the quality of the songs is nice (better than my aIMP lol) and the amount of songs is pretty remarkable.

In case anyone wants to listen to my PvP Playlist, here it is:

http://www.playlist.com/node/43487407

Old school warrior videos <3

Without anything else to say and pretty much falling asleep on the KB (inc faceroll!)

Read ya guys later ^^

Leading Technique #2: Keeping the Right Attitude

veneretio — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 15:24:10 GMT

We all have highs and lows as Raid Leaders. It's no secret that our tone of voice (otherwise known as our mood) can greatly affect the tone or mood of our entire raid. Passionate, excited, encouraged, courageous raid leaders get results out of an empty glass. Raid Leaders coming off with the opposite attitude get noticeably worse results.

But, what happens when things really are going bad?
What about when I'm in a really bad mood?

Well that Sally is the hard part, that's what separates the men from the boys, the ladies from the chicks, the heroes from the super heroes, the cliches from the quotes... okay you get the point.

A while ago I noticed something about myself. I'm a hell of a lot better Raid Leader when someone from another guild is on a run. In the face of adversity, I never consider defeat an option. The general speed and tone of the run is amazing. Now granted this is because my raid is naturally better behaved too, but the biggest reason is because I've got something to prove. I'm holding myself to a higher standard than I'd normally hold myself to. I do this instinctively without thinking. I'm representing the guild after all.

So, what's the technique here?

Pretend.

You don't have to prove anything to your guild. You're the raid leader after all, but let's pretend you do. That being said... who ever said being the raid leader suddenly meant you had nothing to prove?

Remember, you're always representing your guild even when surrounded only by your guildmates.

A Turd Wrapped in Burnt Hair.

Horacio — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 14:33:45 GMT

So shoot me, there was another thread or blog post about this a while back. I looked for it, honest, but anyhow.....

I ran a ZA pug last night and we whomped Eagle and Bear pretty easily but floundered at Dragonhawk and again at Lynx due to inexperience and poor class balance. That said, I scored a [Akil'zon's Talonblade] as no one else wanted it. As the other prot warrior in the raid said, it "looks like a turd wrapped in burnt hair"

Ok, so.....For content, I'm kinda in limbo. I don't have a guild but have been filling into raids here and there with some friends but I generally don't tank much as there seem to be plenty of them around. I've been clinging to Thunderfury throughout the expansion and have made it work, successfully tanking up through Kaz in Hyjal (and building enough threat to win that DPS race of a fight) And to the extent, King's Defender sits in my bag.

I actually tried KD on Prince last week and before phase 2 was swapping back because I wasn't happy with my threat. I think part of it is that I have adapted my rotations to it. /shrug.

Anyhow, its long past time for an upgrade. The Talonblade is obviously not my first choice but my only choice atm. Holy crap, its ugly. I almost wouldn't use it based on that alone but then I look at the rest of my ZA/badge gear.../facepalm.

Next question.....Executioner.....no brainer, really. I have goose on TF in theory to use the hate proc for more white hits per minute = more TF procs = more damage and threat.

Well, don't this suck? I have the executioner enchant on my druid but he's on the same account....../sigh.

Anyway....I've got a decent gold stockpile, I think I'll try it out and look like a tard tanking with a crappy hunter sword. Its got good stam, the right speed, haste can only help and AP for pure threat off white damage and HS (which I use alot) We'll see.

And then.... M'uru died

Narshe — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 09:34:00 GMT

2 months after our first step onto the door of M'uru, the corrupted naaru and fifth boss of Sunwell Plateau, it has finally saved.

Something you probably would not know, in Spanish, M'uru has almost the same spelling as the word 'muro' which means 'wall'. Coincidence? Nahh xDDD

Certain a wall, probably the hardest boss of the expansion, a serious guild killer and we have almost fallen apart because of it.
We lost almost 10 core raiders, full sunwell equipped. We had to call off a lot of nights because we lacked people. And even with all this despair, we managed to wipe it forever.

I'm sad about the nerf. I'm sad because I think we could have killed it before it. Now I know we could have not. We have lost A LOT of good players with full gear before killing Eredar Twins. When some of the top guild raid with 2-3 set of glaives, gul'dans, etc.... our guild barely had 25 ppl with all the tier6 pieces (in fact, I started raiding Sunwell with just 3/8 T6 :S).
Last week was even worse. We had a lot of sub-10% wipes. If all those guys would not have left the guild, that 10% could have been their damage and healing.....

Well, enough for a rant, it's time to cheering up.
We are now so close for the game over as a guild, but as a player I think I will miss the Kil'jaeden fight. I have some IRL matters to attend and it's hard for me to attend every day like I always did.
Who knows if I will be able to see Kil'jaeden die at my feet, but M'uru has been enough for me and I'm really happy that, even with the last boss still alive, I have made my "Game over" already ^_^

I hope that WotLK pve will be even better than TBC one.

Talking about pve.... I'm still wondering which class I will be carrying in next expansion. If I would be playing in the alliance, it will be my gnome warrior for sure. Now that I play horde, it's hard to decide which toon to use. Seriously, I can't really acept any warrior that is not my gnome (I've fallen in love). There is also three really good warriors in the guild aswell and none is gonna reroll.
So my decision must be, first of all, which side to play, and if it's horde, which class: retribution paladin, tankadin or feral druid.

Thanks for reading!

Frustrations

Shorty — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 07:57:12 GMT

The good

So on Friday we went into TK, after about a week a bit off raiding. I was in a good mood, and despite losing our priest CL to a broken internet we managed to get 25 people of the right roles online. Al'ar trash went well, Al'ar himself was buggy, with lag spikes causing some problems, after a P1 wipe we downed him the next time. It got completely chaotic though with the last tank dieing at 5% or so and only about 8 people standing by the time he died.

Onwards to VR, and a smooth trash clear, we did the group up under his feet strategy which went well til about 25% when someone pulled and he wiped most of the dps. But we killed him anyway. By the time we reached Sol we were down to 22 (3 dps'ers were offline), but a clean one shot resulted nonetheless, she dropped the warrior trinket, which I won by default being the only remaining warrior in the raid! Our only trash wipe of the evening was on Sol's trash when a warlock got MC'ed and feared someone into Sol, waking up all the groups in the room as well :)

2 and a half hours for 3/4 down is good for us and more than that it was a fun night.

The Bad
On Monday we went into MH and without a pally tank we did our best. Eventually got Rage down, but couldn't get through Ane's trash cleanly enough. I'd love for trigger happy dps classes to play a prot warrior/druid on MH trash. By the end of it I was sooo stressed out: I took 27% of the trash damage - 8% more than any other tank and yet still there were the comments "we really need a prot pally". I'm sure most of them meant nothing by it, but it's really depressing when you're slogging your fingers off, doing your best.

The ugly
Last night we were back into MH, this time with our prot pally. However due to a tank being 15minutes late and one dps and one healer short we started 25minutes late, meaning most of us had been hanging around for 40minutes -- not the sort of thing to put me in a good mood. I'd be honest and say I wasn't expecting us to down Ane, it's not like we outgear MH and when due to server instabilities 23 manning effectively turned into 22manning, it was always going to be a disaster. We called it early with Ane still standing and I have to say a very grumpy gnome.

About the only thing that cheered me up was despite a prot pally (who btw is very good), the trash was still messy. The tanks were eating far too much shadow damage from the necros and decursing was slow to painful at times.

The future
The immediate future holds no raiding for me, as I'm busy in RL thursday and am not raiding over the weekend, apart from maybe a ZA run. My druid has 2 days of rested exp to work through and Shorty is about 7k short of winterspring trainer and timbermaw rep, so hopefully a quieter rest of week is in store.

Thanks for listening to the rant!

How can you tell the floor of Karazhan isn't level

Leytur — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 19:29:37 GMT

The druid only drools out of ONE side of his mouth.

What did the druid get on his SAT?

Drool.

Sometimes, it's just not possible to care...

veneretio — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 17:21:45 GMT

Sometimes, it's just not possible to fake it...

Yesterday, I was still excited from the previous night's accomplishments...

Yesterday, I was excited at the thought of doing a real night of Gurtogg attempts...

Yesterday, I was pumped and ready to pull Gurtogg...

Yesterday, my best friend's kid brother rolled his vehicle going 110 mph leaving him paralyzed from the waist down...

Yesterday, I did Gurtogg attempts and just didn't care...

Sometimes, it's just not possible to fake it.