New 70 tank, overwhelmed by wrath instances

TL;DR? Skip to the last paragraph

A few months back, I pushed hard to get a character levelled up and into Wrath raiding. In that time, I quested a lot, and completed almost every single quest in Wrath content. Having done that, I didn't want to do questing on my new Paladin tank alt.

So I hit 15 and levelled exclusively through lfg. Yep. My policy has been to continue chaining them with that or any new group until I start getting compliments inbetween pulls. Except now I get them a bit too often and so I grin and usually keep going for a few more hours.

As an aside, I've noticed that complements, constructive criticism and advice only come from skilled teammates. I've very slowly learned patience for tanking for (and teaching) newer people, and even through some spectacular recoveries, they're silent. Maybe they're just embarassed for failing at life.

I did a lot of reading before even making the character, but in my grouping time I've learned quite a bit more. Partially due to experience but also due to constructive advice from groupies. (damn, I can't parry from behind? well .. that makes sense.. /facepalm)

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I just hit 70, and was able to equip the few pieces of gear I could either win from or convince death knoobs not to ninja. Sigh. Well at least I haven't had another warlock steal a sword.

Before 70, I was able to tank Utgarde Keep once. The second and third times became progressively more difficult. On the third time, we wiped a bunch and really tried hard with tactics.. but it wasn't possible to do.

I wanted to dance around the poles for the end boss, like I did with my first success, but (unless I get lucky again) healers don't have the skill for that. (and druids are just hopeless) Everyone wanted me to stand still and get healed. But even through pots, aura-switching timing and cooldowns don't have the gear for that.

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So now I'm pondering my options.

- I don't want to do BC or Wrath questing.

- I don't want to switch specs and dps. I want to tank it all the way.

I don't know if it's just a matter of being burned out from questing everything already or a point of honour to get to 80 solely through tanking using lfg.

- I don't want to be carried by a guild (unguilded).

Another aside.. back in the day I levelled my healer to 70 and I would get a trickle of offers that got stronger and stronger until at 70 people started grooming me to get into raiding. This new lfg so completely obliterates the community concept of pugging that it's next to impossible to make a friend or meet a guild.

- I think it would be rude to go through UK and drop out for the last boss.

- I could level up by grinding BC instances, which would be fine if I could actually get groups for the later ones. I'm still pissed that I can't participate in a random lfg for BC instances. But it seems that getting decent gear out of BC won't really help much with Wrath content.

- I could get into heroic BC instances, which I'm considering. But the epic fail that are level 70 players leads me to believe that it would not be much fun. "Why are all those funny icons over their heads? cc, what's that?" I seriously met someone who had no idea what consecrate was. I said he was as dumb as a post, I'd be insulting posts.

It might be valuable for me to get guilded just to meet people and have a proper/regular group for heroics.

- I might be able to position myself to do BC raiding.. maybe get some Kara going. But somehow I doubt that would be lots of fun with the general skill level these days.

- I'm a blacksmith/jewelcrafter. I wish I knew to take mining, but I do have it on a 50 alt. I don't want to drop something to pick up mining since I've already spent a lot of time on skilling up to what I have. My smith/jc levels are too low to craft anything of any value at all, and I'm not sure there is anything particularly valuable for me to craft.. but I'll try this route. Unfortunately it will involve both mining on the alt and levelling the alt to get to the higher level nodes. Alternately I could buy mats on the AH, and I've been working on this, but when they are inflated over 4x their value or mats are simply _not there_ it's really demoralizing.

- I could grind and otherwise work hard for the cash for the overpriced mats. I do hate getting ripped off though. Maybe I should keep the trade channel open and buy direct?

- I've avoided enchanting for some time now, but I think that now my best pieces should be enchanted. I don't know that this would help much.. but every bit counts..

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So my general question is: Given the no-quest and lfg-only limitations I've placed on myself, is crafting and enchanting my gear while levelling in BC regulars still the best route to go? What other options are there?

[edit]

update: looks like the cobalt set is all level 70! I had no idea..

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=39085#comments

People are saying this is a good starter kit. It looks so, seeing as everything has defense and a silly amount of stamina.

for the last guy.. instead of dancing around the pole.. or tanding still.. just tank him standing still until he starts to cast the nasty things, then step forward through him, he will not turn around.. he will be frozen in place casting.. spin him back around after that..it's easy to avoid his smashes.

Thanks for the tip, I was assuming that his effect was an AoE and not a cone/cleave.

I'm checking up on tactics for him, and it looks like my poorer healers were getting hit by the 8-second lockout from his roar.

I also see why I assumed this was an aoe.. he does do an aoe with a more substantial cone effect. I can also see why shadow resistance has been so helpful.

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Also, as a followup. I did some playing around with mining the higher level stuff, and there's no way I'm going to be able to mine my own mats in a reasonable amount of time. Not just because of the farming, but because the gatherer is too low a level and would need to be levelled.. which is just more time and annoyance.

So instead I've gathered my money and purchased as many slots of gear as I could afford, and some kits to give some more hit points. This and proper tactics might be what I need to grind at least the one Wrath instance..

Utgarde keep is a big step up on BC instances, my 69 DK without much tanking gear handles the burning crusader dungeons while UK got me killed in the first pull. If you get the full cobalt set and some defense accessories it should be very easy, early wotlk you could pull entire rooms without breaking a sweat if you had tier 6 or it's badge equivalent.

Looks like you're on your way. Just to clarify, his Smash ability is a frontal cone during the first phase of the fight. You can run through him or strafe to the side to avoid it. After the boss dies and is resurrected the ability becomes Dark Smash and is an AOE. You can run away to out range it. The only time you want to run behind a column is to avoid the ability he casts just after he's resurrected.

Most tanks in heroic UK simply stand and eat the abilities these days. Many players seem to have forgotten how hard the ability hits a tank running the normal version in level appropriate gear. You definitely want to avoid both abilities the best you can, they are tank killers at 70.

I noticed on my druid which I am curently leveling, that mobs hit a lot harder in wotlk than in the bc instances, just get used to it and carry on. Soon you will (hopefully) get some appropiate gear from them and then the normals will go back being so piss easy as they were when I leveled my DK tank for the first time. Though druids has it nice in leveling instances, since they are crit imune by tallents, which will help tanking such stuff significantly.

For making money, convert your Stonekeeper's Shards and Triumph Emblems (if you can afford to do so) to Epic gems and auction them:

SKS -> Honor (Wintergrasp vendor) -> Epic gems (faction pvp gem vendor)
Triumph -> Conquest -> Valor -> Heroism -> Epic Gems (Emblem quartermasters in Dalaran)

Hopefully your faction has WG enough that you'll collect alot of SKS running Northrend dungeons. If not, make sure to do WG as much as possible.

Also, the mats for Breastplate of the White Knight and Saronite Swordbreakers are much cheaper now, you may be able to afford them after doing the above. That will help your survivability immensefly.

Your Triumphs are best spend on the highest ilvl Triumph gear available first, but skip the T9 chest and get White Knight instead. But I included it in case you're desperate for gold.

Good point about Wotlk being a big step up. It was really harrowing. I was pulling four-five groups of stuff pre-bc but it's become more and more challenging as I've progressed through expansions.

Part of the result of the new lfg is that more healers are showing up. Many of these healers are next to incompetent, and I'm quite shocked at how many will wait for me to be at half health before starting to heal, even when they have full mana. This is especially deadly when druid healers act like this. Since right now I have high avoidance and low health, it's a serious mistake to be patient with healing me.

Also, the new lfg does indeed royally screw up the party composition if one or more well-geared players are "slumming it". When this happens - and it's happening more frequently now - I could get stuck with a totally undergeared and unprepared healer.

Also, many overgeared 80s downplay the challenge of early wotlk regulars and they act like idiots with no threat meter.

That and huntards with growling pets. I'm trying to not get annoyed these days, but it's still inconsiderate when they're not trying to improve dps by not wasting their pet's energy on taunts. I still laugh when hunters say "mana" and sit to drink. Lawl. I like when more people are responding with "viper"..

I'm still pissed off at how many players don't understand the concept of cleared/safe areas and un-cleared and un-safe areas. I start a fight and people walk past me into new territory.. and pull extra stuff. /facepalm

But at least I'm learning to change my tone to be less bitter or instructive and more advisory. So instead of "come closer to avoid that rush" to "they rush when you're far away from them". Some players don't understand when they fail at life and they get pissy when told how to fail less.

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Unfortunately I had Darkmoon Card: Vengeance sniped from me, but other than that I spent a large sum of money on gear and it has made a remarkable difference. I'm now able to do the first two wotlk instances without breaking a sweat. I doubt I'll ever find a group to do BC heroics. Maybe that's what a decent guild could offer me. I should probably transfer..

So it does appear that tanking not only requires a huge expenditure of money on gems, enchants and gear.. but it also requires planning and hustle since every pull is mine, and leadership and tactics skills since everyone has to dance the right dance or die. I've done a couple of chains where I've taken the same group on a tour through the late BC stuff, explaining all the fights and such. This is quite an overwhelming amount of stuff to know, and I'm glad there are so many resources out there for all the stuff I need to learn. I need to find an addon which will let me take more extensive notes.. maybe one for per-mob-type notes so I can write up all the things I need to advise newbies on. I probably have one bookmarked around here somewhere.

Good tips on getting more money. I think that as long as I stay fairly lucky with groups that I can actually make a small profit for my runs selling greys and auctioning stuff. It's been taking so long to level through instances that I ought to have quite a lot of money before I get to 80, without sacrificing emblems for cash, especially since I don't need to care about epic of cold weather flying for a long time. I think I can probably even afford a few set pieces when I get to 80.. =)

I just hope groups are still forgiving about my low bs/jc skills when I roll on plans and designs. I've won an a few, including an epic bs. =)

Boy White Knight would be pretty expensive.. but it's tasty.

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Btw, just as there are lots of new crappy healers.. there seem to be enough crappy tanks that I'm getting sighs of relief. I had one healer whisper me to thank me for caring about defense, and another group say "finally a compatent tank" when I zoned in. That same group went on to rant between and during pulls about their experiences with tanks, and ended up getting into the "not enough health, too much defense" nonsense. I just grinned to myself and stayed quiet. I've been in groups when I had the least health. hah.

I just hope everyone continues to ignore my trinkets.. heh. Maybe I can raid with them? +10 nature resist is totally OP. ;)

I *really* wish more people used the Karma addon so we can help filter out some of the dumbfcuks. This was the first thing I looked for when the new lfg came out. I actually wanted something like this integrated into lfg so that I don't have to ever be grouped with an idiot again, and I have a higher chance to group with decent players - whatever their gear level.

.. and wtf is it with me not being able to start new randoms with the same group under 69 because of level differences, but now I get stuck with 80s? Bah.

Ok.. wall of text again.. I'll stop now.

I wouldn't completely forego questing, each zone has a couple major questlines that end in a very reasonable blue that will last you until something better drops from a dungeon. Also, it's an excellent source of gold.

What I would do is search wowhead for good blues in the 70-72 range and see how you can get the maximum amount of upgrades possible with a minimum of questing. At the very least go quest out dragonblight and hop on the wrathgate chain, the trinket off that is a free health pot on cd with respectable crit. It may be a butt-saver if you get a bad healer.

I'll reiterate the questing for blues thingy here. There's a quest that requires you to kill an elite in early zul-drak that rewards a 1-h tanking weapon that will probably get you to 80.

I was in the same boat as you. I found the cobalt gear to be awesome for this. Now I went overboad on mine and did expensive enchants and trinkets but if you can get the cobalt items it will make a world of difference for you.

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...cn=Sm%C3%BCrfy