An attempt at a hopeful tanking blog, as written by a warrior tank who is just starting the path to Ulduar, with looks into the past, into the present, and plans for the future, as a place those who are walking the same path can go to learn from the experiences of someone who came before them, and can inspire them to get through those all important levels that are so tough to get through alone.
Gearing blues
Posted 06-07-2009 at 10:15 PM by Karisita
So gearing is slowing down, I've been beating my head against Heroic UK and heroic Nexus for the last week or so, and I've got some decent stats, but we've had problems. Plus the purchasing of gear has left me bereft of money. Seriously, and 80, with 9g? REALLY?
And I am just having so much trouble convincing myself to get on and run those dalies to get the money to pay back for my guild repair loans, It's just... on my Mage, I spent MONTHS doing dalies... trying to grind gold to get my epic flying, trying to get together gear for raiding, and everything just sucked the fun out of it for me. As a tank, I feel my job is to be out there, standing the thin line between the DPS and the mobs... but instances are shit for generating money. Heroics more so, but you get less because everyone needs something.
Not only that but I'm SICK of pugging HOL. And I'm serious, let me just vent a little here, if I see one more FUCKIN group where the levels go, from highest to lowest, 80 (me) 77, 77, 76, 74... on an EIGHTY INSTANCE... and not ONE is originally specced resto? I'm GOING TO SCREAM! Today I went with a 77 mage, a 77 feral DPS druid that was off specced resto and healing, a 76 warlock (with the crappy rock candy.) and a 74 shammy dual specced ele/resto, who was dpsing.... and the party had a GRAND TOTAL of 2,200 DPS. I've got a mage on friends that has almost twice that! She pushed 3400 in our last instance!
Worst part? While I was talking to the shammy about their DPS (because I'm sorry, 200 wasn't cutting it to get through HOL... the mage just decided he'd pull the next mob... and he did decent at it, much as I wish I could say he wasn't... it was that one lone stormforged guy on the ramp to the second platform just before General. He got him down to 20% before he got one hit in and took the mage down half his health. I charged in and saved his ass, thinking maybe he didn't know I was talking and wasn't ready.
So I sit down, I say look, I'm dealing with one of the DPS in whispers, chill a sec. and his response is "who cares, just chain pull" and he proceeds to start pegging one of the group of four just down the ramp ON the second platform. (the one General stops on) So since he decided not to listen, I just sat there and watched as they all charged him, he frost nova'ed and backed off, managed to take one down, but the others were breathing down his throat, he got hit once, then ice blocked, the warlock got hit next, and went down to one hit from three of the mobs, and that was how long it took mme to charge in and get agro, but it was too late. the damage was already done, the offending mage (and party leader I might add) was unscathed, and two party members had a repair bill now because of him.
And I went off. Probably should have reined in a little, but dammit, I been thru there a hundred times by now, and frankly, I know what I'm doing. I know how to tank fairly well, and I know the instance like the back of my hand. 2.2k dps wasn't going to drop general before a 77 healer ran OOM trying to heal me, Sorry. And a mage with 6k health wouldn't have survived loken, and with him gone, there goes half the dps. So... no. Not gonna work. And if the mage keeps pulling while I'm trying to work out the DPS situation, then we're just going to wipe, over, and over, and over again. That might be a total of 14g for the night for them, but for me, it's 14g PER DEATH. And when I ain't got gold, I can't deal with that.
So I let him have it... Told him if he didn't like the speed of the instance, find a new tank, because I'm not going to run if he thinks he can tank. Sure they might drop a mob or two, eventually, but the bosses are a whole different story. Noone's kiting the bosses, or tanking them, when they don't have a tank. I told him if he wants to pull, he can tank, go on and see how well he does with his cloth. The group kicked me and everyone else was yelling at me as I left what a horrible tank I was and how bitchy and rude I was.. when in fact I was fighting with the mage for THEIR repair bills, mine too, but I wasn't the one that died.
Oh well, tomorrow will be better... kids have school.
And I am just having so much trouble convincing myself to get on and run those dalies to get the money to pay back for my guild repair loans, It's just... on my Mage, I spent MONTHS doing dalies... trying to grind gold to get my epic flying, trying to get together gear for raiding, and everything just sucked the fun out of it for me. As a tank, I feel my job is to be out there, standing the thin line between the DPS and the mobs... but instances are shit for generating money. Heroics more so, but you get less because everyone needs something.
Not only that but I'm SICK of pugging HOL. And I'm serious, let me just vent a little here, if I see one more FUCKIN group where the levels go, from highest to lowest, 80 (me) 77, 77, 76, 74... on an EIGHTY INSTANCE... and not ONE is originally specced resto? I'm GOING TO SCREAM! Today I went with a 77 mage, a 77 feral DPS druid that was off specced resto and healing, a 76 warlock (with the crappy rock candy.) and a 74 shammy dual specced ele/resto, who was dpsing.... and the party had a GRAND TOTAL of 2,200 DPS. I've got a mage on friends that has almost twice that! She pushed 3400 in our last instance!
Worst part? While I was talking to the shammy about their DPS (because I'm sorry, 200 wasn't cutting it to get through HOL... the mage just decided he'd pull the next mob... and he did decent at it, much as I wish I could say he wasn't... it was that one lone stormforged guy on the ramp to the second platform just before General. He got him down to 20% before he got one hit in and took the mage down half his health. I charged in and saved his ass, thinking maybe he didn't know I was talking and wasn't ready.
So I sit down, I say look, I'm dealing with one of the DPS in whispers, chill a sec. and his response is "who cares, just chain pull" and he proceeds to start pegging one of the group of four just down the ramp ON the second platform. (the one General stops on) So since he decided not to listen, I just sat there and watched as they all charged him, he frost nova'ed and backed off, managed to take one down, but the others were breathing down his throat, he got hit once, then ice blocked, the warlock got hit next, and went down to one hit from three of the mobs, and that was how long it took mme to charge in and get agro, but it was too late. the damage was already done, the offending mage (and party leader I might add) was unscathed, and two party members had a repair bill now because of him.
And I went off. Probably should have reined in a little, but dammit, I been thru there a hundred times by now, and frankly, I know what I'm doing. I know how to tank fairly well, and I know the instance like the back of my hand. 2.2k dps wasn't going to drop general before a 77 healer ran OOM trying to heal me, Sorry. And a mage with 6k health wouldn't have survived loken, and with him gone, there goes half the dps. So... no. Not gonna work. And if the mage keeps pulling while I'm trying to work out the DPS situation, then we're just going to wipe, over, and over, and over again. That might be a total of 14g for the night for them, but for me, it's 14g PER DEATH. And when I ain't got gold, I can't deal with that.
So I let him have it... Told him if he didn't like the speed of the instance, find a new tank, because I'm not going to run if he thinks he can tank. Sure they might drop a mob or two, eventually, but the bosses are a whole different story. Noone's kiting the bosses, or tanking them, when they don't have a tank. I told him if he wants to pull, he can tank, go on and see how well he does with his cloth. The group kicked me and everyone else was yelling at me as I left what a horrible tank I was and how bitchy and rude I was.. when in fact I was fighting with the mage for THEIR repair bills, mine too, but I wasn't the one that died.
Oh well, tomorrow will be better... kids have school.
Total Comments 11
Comments
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There are alot of people like that, and I act more or less the same way towards them. Mages are great when played properly, but most Mages haven't got the first idea.
And I really hate it when I'm told to 'tank better' or 'pull faster', especially when I'm equalling them on DPS as the bloody Tank! Frankly, it's pathetic.
And I had to tank HoL loads of times as well (and healed it more times then I'd like as well). I SOLOED Loken on Heroic once because the DPS was so bad! Was told 'just die', because apperently my repair bill isn't high enough already, but I ignored them and killed him myself (obviously with the Priest not being an idiot and surviving as well, and I think she was throwing on SW:P as well to help out).
In the end, Loken down. Everyone says 'nice job'. Suckers.
But yeah, tanking PUGs is a pain in the arse. But it gets a bit better in heroics (slightly, at least) because of the level requirement and there being more players available to choose from.
But you should really befriend a healer, it makes the gearing process alot more fun - DPS are dime a dozen.Posted 06-07-2009 at 11:57 PM by Durandro 
- I do have a healer normally, but he was pussy whipped and talking to his girlfriend the entire time. And anymore DPS is our problem, we can never find enough, and when we do they cycle out the first time we wipe and we have to find basically a whole new group. My guild's other healer got his ass kicked in a fight a few weeks ago, so he hasn't been on (he's a tree, I love my tree.)
And I had a similar problem running reg UK once... me and my pally healer went to UK because a bunch of 70's and 68's wanted to go... so we gave 'em charity... when we were right in front of the last two pulls, we started telling 'em what to do, they started getting bitchy and talking about how the pally should have beacon (this was 2 days before free respec. He was just waiting for it.). This was true, but he started up with this line of "my main is the number one paladin in the server..." blah blah blah... yeah right.
So we get to the last boss, and they all are getting so much damage that the healer spends all his time healing them, and runs out of mana halfway through the fight, and I get downed. Then we go back in, and I leaned over to my tank and said Just let 'em die. It's the only way we're surviving this. So after the first staggering roar, they all die, they're all screaming for me to die or run out if I can. But I stand there with my pally healer, who puts judgement of light on him, and it takes a minute or two, but I kill him solo, and leave the loot for the scrubs. Of course, since I didn't loot him, they didn't get the roll options, so they figure he's still alive. I ran out the same way I came in and when I passed them (almost to the boss's platform) they went "fuck" and ran out... when we got to the door and I kept running they were like "where is he, I don't see him?" I said "he's dead back on his platform." Run little scrubs, run. I just wasted about ten minutes of your time by just choosing a different way to run out. Suckers.Posted 06-08-2009 at 08:19 AM by Karisita 
- So I'm wondering why your pugging HoL at 80? You didn't mention your guild status, but you said you did H. UK & Nexus. You'd be better off running them or others with people the same lvl as you.
I'd say you need to suck it up and do dailies like them or not. You can do the ones at Shadow Vault in like 10-15 mins, that's like 40g right there. Not sure if your planning on progressing to raiding, but expect huge repair bills if your learning as you go. So you need to get a little resources built up. Dailies are a necessary evil unless you have a gathering or crafting profession that makes you money.Posted 06-08-2009 at 09:38 AM by dirt - He's probably after the defense trinket off Loken. Best trinket you can get, pre-raid.
And quite often required for that matter. Upgrades quite often have a lower amount of Defense Rating, thus having a trinket with a large amount of it helps immensely.Posted 06-08-2009 at 11:32 AM by Durandro - Durandro is exactly right, I'm after the trinket from Loken, sure I can run heroics till I'm blue in the face and get badges, and badges get me nifty stuff like the Valor Medal of the First War, and some kind of discarded shield wall I just picked up last night, but it can't get me the trinket from Loken, which as Durandro stated, is pretty much neccisary.
Yeah I need to do dalies. I wasn't arguing that, just saying it's hard to convince myself to do it.
My guild is... usually better than it is right now, we've only got 8 80's, but we're trying to gear everyone as much as we can, and unfortunately I can't get a group together to sit there and pound HoL till it drops. Which sucks.
And yes, we're going to be progressing to raiding. And my Heroics are all done with people that are 80, and we try to get them as close to our gear level as possible, but sometimes we end up with people that are a little higher than us, which is frustrating because they get pissed when we wipe once, and leave because they're just looking for a quick run, while we're still looking for gear to help us through it.Posted 06-08-2009 at 11:37 AM by Karisita - Do the Icecrown dailies (3 at Shadowvault and 3 at Death's Rise) at the very least as they are fairly quick (usually 1/2 hour or so), close to one another, and give you about 100gp. Sons of Hodir quests are not bad as well but pick and choose the quick ones only.
Also if you don't have fishing leveled up, I'd recommend it. Why? Because just with the fishing daily in Dalaran alone you can easily get 100gp (i.e. painting) or even up to 1000gp (i.e. runed stormjewel), depending upon the item rewards in the bag. I've probably already made 3000gp to 5000gp just from fishing rewards alone. Best of all, it's usually quick and easy.Posted 06-08-2009 at 12:50 PM by Malavar - ...and his response is "who cares, just chain pull"...
This is why I usually don't PUG that much. Most peeps (90% of them) I've encountered within PUGs are idiots.
1) They don't pay attention.
2) They don't do things by the numbers (i.e. marked symbols).
3) They all think they are tanks.
4) They whine after one or two wipes on a difficult boss, even though they're the ones who usually caused the wipes.
Very rarely I'll find peeps who are in a decent guild with decent raiding experience and they are indeed a joy to PUG with.Posted 06-08-2009 at 01:03 PM by Malavar - Your horror stories make me appreciate my server even more... sure they're all stuck up, but most of them can really play, and there's so many people that I can weed out the stuck up ones.
Anyways, to be productive: you're over 540 defense. The trinket isn't worth the aggravation you get running normal dungeons with pugs, it's much more worth it to get some guildies together and just spend a few hours powering through it, since you don't have the once/day cap on regular instances. Or to preserve everyone's sanity run it 2/3 times a day on the weekends and just ignore it the rest of the week or something (whatever works for you guys).
Also, if you can make it through an instance without wiping, you'll gain quite a bit of gold (you'll still be positive after 1 wipe I believe). And those excess emblems can be spent on frozen orbs/gems for more gold. So if you don't like the dailies route and can get a good group together for heroics you shouldn't have to worry about money.Posted 06-08-2009 at 01:56 PM by Muffin Man - The 2/3 days is what I'm doing, I'm trying to keep as much to my guild and our tight band of other-guilded friends. We have a few of those. And they're cool.
I actually got whispered by the mage and one of the other members of that group today. One asking to go to reg HOL again.... to which I said no, and the other one saying "hey, you're that bad tank that doesn't like to chain pull!"
.... Hey, you're that idiot who doesn't know the difference between 200 and 2000 dps, and didn't like to listen to tanks who said hold up a minute I'm dealing with something.
Sorry I thought we were in a state the obvious competition... I'm competitive by nature.
Unfortunately we really aren't getting far without wiping, and the emblems can't be spent on frozen orbs until we get the gear we need in order to do it without wiping.
The best thing for me is dalies, at least for now.... but my guildies are wanting to grind more and more and more, which is great for them, but I need the money to support the habbit. And the trinket from Loken is worth it, I'm just sick of running through that instance by now, I'm thinking of taking a break from it.Posted 06-08-2009 at 10:21 PM by Karisita - If you're that sick of doing dailies, you might consider installing Auctionner and sitting down at the AH.
That's the other path out of a money shortage. I'd be bored as hell myself doing that but it might change the air a bit for you.Posted 06-09-2009 at 11:16 AM by Mayoche - I've had auc for about as long as I've had wow... I just have had mixed results with it... and it's as always a gamble. Personally... I just need to get my urge to do dalies back... which was a lot easier after I stopped trying and failing to do the damn hodir's spear daily, I paid 50g in repairs on that damn quest before I gave up. The rest are easy. I've gotten back into the swing a little, and was helped by the fact that I had an auction sell for 145g, so it feels a lot less nerve wracking to be sitting at 152 than 7g.
I did maybe 10 dalies last night, will try to do more tonight if time permits.Posted 06-09-2009 at 01:50 PM by Karisita
