TankSpot - Blogs - Musings of a (casual) raider by Halandir http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/halandir/ en Mon, 23 Nov 2009 02:56:24 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.tankspot.com/forums/images/misc/rss.jpg TankSpot - Blogs - Musings of a (casual) raider by Halandir http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/halandir/ Unhittable... almost http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/halandir/2598-unhittable-almost.html Mon, 20 Jul 2009 17:16:27 GMT So, I'm not a JC'er or a BS'er... which makes it a little harder to hit "passive unhittable." I'm pretty close though, just under 100% (out of the needed 102.4%).

I updated my passive unhittable gear listing, haven't updated the gear guide yet but you can see the updated list here on my blog. ]]> Halandir http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/halandir/2598-unhittable-almost.html Threat Minimums http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/halandir/2590-threat-minimums.html Fri, 17 Jul 2009 17:08:50 GMT Trying to maximize your effective health while maintaining high threat output can be tricky. One key to accomplishing this is knowing just exactly what the so called "threat minimums" are.

(read the rest here at journeytank.blogspot.com) ]]> Halandir http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/halandir/2590-threat-minimums.html <![CDATA["Best in Slot" Gear Article #1 - Helm]]> http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/halandir/2474-best-slot-gear-article-1-helm.html Mon, 15 Jun 2009 19:31:54 GMT Gearing up doesn't always mean looking for the highest item-level items possible. If you know what stats you benefit from the most, you can sometimes find relatively easily obtainable items that are as good or better than items of a higher item-level, or are simply awesome, easily obtainable upgrades from pre-3.1 gear.

For example...

(to read the rest of this post, visit my new blog! you can find it at www.journeytank.blogspot.com) ]]> Halandir http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/halandir/2474-best-slot-gear-article-1-helm.html the Journey begins http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/halandir/1443-journey-begins.html Fri, 24 Oct 2008 17:45:34 GMT I'm one of those analytical types who takes forever to make decisions... and the one I made yesterday was probably the hardest decision I've made in WOW.

I've been a long-time member of a great casual raiding guild since I started playing WOW almost 4 years ago. I've made lots of friends, even met up with some of them "IRL" (hate that term, but anyway). I've risen from a noob warrior OT in the MC days to Officer and raid leader through Burning Crusade.

Last night, I left the only guild I've been a member of for 3 1/2 years to join a friend of mine in starting a new guild with a bunch of college friends of ours. We are trying to hit a niche of players who have the ability and desire to raid in the "hardcore" guilds out there, but don't want to raid 5 nights a week.

We have enough people now to do 10-man Naxx, and we may expand to 25-mans in the future.

I'm stoked about getting things up and running with the release of WotLK in a few weeks... as part of the guild leadership, I'm going to be handling all the tanking apps, so I'm reading up on Tankadins, Bears, and DK tanks (my main is a prot warrior). We are making the application process pretty stiff, in hopes that by doing so we will attract high-caliber raiders who also want to raid with a focused, experienced group but with a slightly less demanding raid schedule and a more family-friendly atmosphere.

and so, the Journey begins... (that's the name of our new guild, and no it's not named after the band)

p.s. We're set on tanks at the moment, but we could use a good mage or lock... ]]> Halandir http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/halandir/1443-journey-begins.html Ghostcrawler and Raid Composition http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/halandir/1388-ghostcrawler-raid-composition.html Thu, 09 Oct 2008 16:37:32 GMT
Quote:
Raid diversity in WotLK
I undestand your concern here. It's totally valid. But it's actually the "OMG we need X" mentality that we're trying to get away from. Even a 25-player raid stacked with healers is going to have ~15 slots for dps. Not every raid will have a rogue in one of those spots, but some will, and some will have 3 or 4. We want to restore flexibility back to the group. Our experience is that a lot of guilds are groups of friends, and it sucks when those groups have to sit out mage 3 and 4 just because "full on mages." If you have a group with exceptional rogues, great. Bring them. You shouldn't be punished for having too many good players.

Now maybe you're worried that battle rez or battle shout or whatever is still too good and stacks so well that every guild is going to switch to stacking, oh I don't know, 10 Ret pallies for their dps. If that happens, and we're convinced it's really an issue not just players experimenting, then we'll squash it. Because the goal is you bring ~15 dps, not that you bring 10 ret pallies. That violates the "OMG we need X" situation. (Source)
Ghostcrawler hits on Blizz's approach to raid composition for the expansion, and I think that this bodes well for the new guild that I'm helping start for raiding in WotLK: instead of having Naxx boss #1 require a completely different class setup than boss #2 (which doesn't make sense AT ALL, one wonders why they set up kara that way in the first place) they seem to be wanting to create common denominators.

For example... trash mob packs in MH, and Kara even were always a pain on my shadowpriest, because I didn't have an aoe and my shadow word: pain was pretty mana-intensive to toss up on every mob... I usually just ended up putting a rank one shadow word pain up to get misery up to buff the locks and mages dps.

With WotLK, as a shadowpriest I now get an aoe with the Mind Sear ablility. And I'm not the only class that gets a new aoe... rogues get Fan of Knives, arms warriors get Bladestorm.

This isn't to say that all classes will be able to aoe at the level of a lock or mage, no fear of that. But taking down aoe packs without having traditional aoe classes in the raid will still be doable due to the new talents/abilities in WotLK. ]]> Halandir http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/halandir/1388-ghostcrawler-raid-composition.html lucky coin http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/halandir/1334-lucky-coin.html Sat, 27 Sep 2008 06:01:15 GMT well, Coren's Lucky Coin dropped for me

followed by Balebrew Charm
followed by Empty Mug of Direbrew
followed by Brightbrew Charm

I'd say my luck finally has changed :) ]]> Halandir http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/halandir/1334-lucky-coin.html <![CDATA[corren's lucky coin... finally]]> http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/halandir/1326-corren-s-lucky-coin-finally.html Fri, 26 Sep 2008 15:57:45 GMT got the block trinket today after being about 0/20

problem is I was playing my shadowpriest when it dropped, DANGIT

oh well I'll try again tonight on my warrior ]]> Halandir http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/halandir/1326-corren-s-lucky-coin-finally.html school. http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/halandir/1314-school.html Wed, 24 Sep 2008 00:10:36 GMT ugh... I'm currently in a grad class in a block format that meets for 8 hours every afternoon/evening this week :( say goodbye to raiding for a couple days

On the positive side, maybe I'll get that 2nd block trinket... ]]> Halandir http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/halandir/1314-school.html tanking BT, warbringer style http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/halandir/1291-tanking-bt-warbringer-style.html Thu, 18 Sep 2008 23:09:57 GMT "You are not prepared!"

Yea, looking at my gear at first glance, you might say that. My "casual" approach to raiding means that I've jumped from Kara/Gruul/Mags straight into MH/BT, almost totally skipping tier 5 content. I think I've tanked a total of 1 boss in SSC/TK (I've been to a few more fights in SSC on my shadowpriest, but never tanked anything other than loot reaver).

So here I am. MT'ing bosses well into MH/BT. Wearing 3 peices of Warbringer. Ideal? no. Doable? sure! But how?

The answer is three-fold: Blizz catering to casuals (read: badge gear), the often overlooked quality of warrior tier four, and how I've itemized my gear for EH. Lets take a closer look.

First, like it or hate it, it's true--Blizz has increasingly catered to casuals. Our guild's strategy for tier 6 has been to gear up with badge/crafted gear and skip over tier 5. While not totally ideal, because there is gear in SSC/TK that you can't replace with badges, this strategy has largely succeeded for us. From a tanking standpoint, there are quite a few peices of badge gear out there now that are really really good. Here's a few examples from my current set I use for tanking most MH/BT bosses.

Bonefist Gauntlets

3rd best gloves in the game as far as EH goes. And you can get them after 2 weeks of karazan and some heroics.
Sunguard Legplates

More EH than t6 legs, and more threat too. A little lower on avoidance but once again going into MH/BT these are great to have.
Girdle of the Fearless

Potential for 73 stam with a 15 stam gem, 1k armor and a ton of threat with 23 hit and 22 expertise makes this a must-have for any casual warrior heading into MH/BT
Bracers of the Ancient Phalanx
Eternium Shell Bracers would beat these in EH, but until then the badge bracers are practically free (kara and a couple heroics) and they'll carry you through t6 just fine.
Badges. there's no reason not to get them, especially now with pretty much every thing you fight dropping them. So go do some karas, get badges, if you can't decide which order to get badges in you can go to vene's blog and read his post on it, or just look at your current gear and decide a priority.


The second reason I've been able to successfully progress into MH/BT lies in the often-overlooked quality of the warrior tier 4 tanking set. My current set of gear includes three pieces of tier 4:

1. Warbringer Greathelm
2. Warbringer Shoulderguards
3. Warbringer Chestguard

When compared to tier 5 and tier 6 level gear in these three slots, Initially one would think that there's no way the warbringer gear can match up... but look again. Yea, avoidance is lower, threat stats are lower, armor/stam is a bit lower, but with 15 stam gems the t4 chest can get you through until you pick up the badge chest at least. The t4 helm is decent as well, not quite as good as the ZA helm but it's ok. And the shoulders carry a lot of stam too. which leads to my third point...

The final aspect of my gearing strategy for MH/BT is how I've itemized for EH. Without going in to the whole effective health discussion too much (if you're reading this you're probably pretty informed on the topic, if not check out Cider's post here), here's how itemizing for EH has played into my "casual" approach to tanking tier 6.

1. Gear

I've already outlined how easy it is to get your hands on quality EH gear. Because it combines great armor/stam with threat stats, the badge gear out there now is great for tanking content above your progression level, where EH shines the most. And even t4, which is cake to obtain for anyone who is in a guild thinking about t6, has a lot of EH potential when socketed for stam.

2. Enchants / Gems

Speaking of sockets... if you check out my armory profile you'll notice a lot of 15 stam gems... in fact all my sockets are 15 stam gems. I have 13 of them. Not that everyone should use all stam gems, but in my case, with the gear I have and the content we are pushing forward into, stam is the way to go. That goes for enchants too.

3. Trinkets

A few weeks ago I finally got my Commendation of Kael'thas after who-knows how many heroic MgT runs. With that and my Darkmoon card: Vengeance, I've got 108 stam just from trinkets. Once again, I don't wear all that EH gear for every situation, I'm not advocating that by any means. But when it comes time to tank a MH boss that stuns you periodically, eliminating all your avoidance stats, you'd better be ready with some handy EH.

If you're like me and want to experience as much content as you can before the patch comes out, go for it! get into some kara runs and pick up badge gear, socket those t4 peices for stam and carry your trusty kings defender into early MH/BT, confident that you'll be prepared to handle anything that comes your way.

Oh and one final note. I've been the subject of some good-natured jokes from guildies about my choice of professions... I'm herbs/alchemy--instead of a more "warrior-like" profession like blacksmithing, or mining or something. But one thing that has come in handy are ironshield potions. Don't underestimate an additional 2.5k armor! Using ironshield pots has helped me make up for the lower armor value of my t4 gear.

a wise man once said... "to be prepared is half the victory." ]]> Halandir http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/halandir/1291-tanking-bt-warbringer-style.html the life of a casual raider http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/halandir/1286-life-casual-raider.html Thu, 18 Sep 2008 17:24:54 GMT I started playing WOW my freshman year of college, in 2005. I was introduced to the game by a friend of mine, played a hunter on his account up to level 30 or so, and then started my human warrior Halandir on my own account soon after. I've been fortunate in that I've been a member of a great guild for three years, the only guild that I've known.

I can't imagine any other guild that could work out better for my RL schedule... school and other stuff has kept me from having a consistent raid schedule at times, and so I've never been able to experience a "hardcore" raiding guild. But I've come to realize that while my guild may not be in Sunwell, may not be able to down Vashj, and may not get any server first kills, I wouldn't trade the casual raiding atmosphere, or the friends I've made over the last three years for anything.

I've "casually" raided MC, been in on our guild's first kill of Ragnaros just as BC came out, then tanked my way through levels 60-70 mostly grinding experience by running 5-mans with guildies. I was still pretty much a noob tank when BC came out, and those 5-mans provided a great chance for me to hone my skills as a tank. School kept me from keeping up with the gearing curve of the other tanks in my guild as we progressed through Kara, Gruul, and into early bosses in TK and SSC.

But with the badge gear upgrades I was able to catch up gear-wise, and since graduating from college my schedule has been more free to raid. We are currently 5% away from downing Azgalore, and we've successfully downed 3 bosses in BT.

So... define casual? Most would call our guild a casual raiding guild. We don't do signups. We don't have a loot system. We don't require raid attendance. We all have multiple alts who are often equally or better geared as our mains. But we have some of the best individual raiders I've met (on my server), and since Blizz decided to recently cater to "casual" guilds by removing attunement requirements for BT/MH and showering us with badge gear, we've been able to experience tier 6 without clearing more than a few t5 bosses. Some people don't like that, but hey--I'm not complaining; I wouldn't be in tier 6 otherwise. ]]> Halandir http://www.tankspot.com/forums/blogs/halandir/1286-life-casual-raider.html