So today I buckled. I went prot on my alt. This makes sense for me (all he does is instance grind) but I don’t SUGGEST it for anyone doing quests. It is plenty easy to tank as arms (and I’d assume fury) you just need to understand a FEW things.
First off, and this is a big one, taunt is not an aggro generator. It’s an aggro DUPLICATOR, but it generates no aggro, and is supposed to be used only if you’re not on top of the threat meter. It will duplicate the person who has the highest threat, and then it’s your job to push it up past that. This can be done with any of your abilities, but its best to use high aggro ones such as sunder.
There are two really good uses of taunt. The first is obvious, saving whoever got aggro. Taunt, sunder or shield bash (shield bash costs less than sunder, and does a fair chunk o’ threat, so it’s a good way to just get you some damage so you can get threat so you can really lock the mob down) and go on your merry tanking way. Another use that I like is to taunt a CC’d mob (forcing it to stick to you) break the CC and then proceed on not having to chase a mob half way across an instance because SOME FOOL decided to attack a sheep wildly before it got sheeped.
Oh yes, I hate it when that happens. NOT THAT IT EVER HAS. *cough*
Now, spamming sunder is good and all, especially for trash mobs, but when you’re on a boss, you get your five sunders up, and it still has a fair chunk of health. Darn that boss for being so health-filled! :)
So what do you do? Sunder is ok to reapply (and I did for my first few boss fights) but look at your tool tips. Remember that skill you used to use to deal damage? It was called heroic strike. And it’s your friend again.
I linked the lowest level, and even it “causes a high amount of threat”. Up till level 66, it deals damage, and causes threat. At 66, it gets a bit more damage if you’ve happened to shield slam a mob lately (or get some other daze applied to it) but other than that, its high damage (higher if the mob is dazed) and high threat.
That is TOTAL win for you, Mr. Arms (or Fury) Tank. Heck, its total win for any tank needing to dump rage. But more importantly, it gives you something good to do on boss fights. Couple that with MS or BT (depending on spec) after 5 sunders, and you should be able to keep aggro.
Besides spamming sunder, and the heroic strike/spec special spam on bosses, there isn’t much to tanking as Arms or Fury. It’s a bit more tough (no extra threat, no extra health, no extra damage reduction, no extra armor bonus, no last stand) but its still VERY doable. Until 70 at least ;)
A few tips. If you’re Arms, and have blood frenzy, keep rend up at all times. I know, it’s rend, it sucks, but it gives 4% extra threat. And once you get spell reflect LOVE IT BIG. It’s amazing, and can save you from nasty 2k hits (1st boss in SP you can spell reflect his lightning bolts, saving you 2k health and dealing him 2k damage). Also, couple shield block with Revenge (I didn’t mention revenge did I, use it, it’s 5 rage for nice threat) as a block triggers Revenge and Revenge is good to throw out ;)
I wanted to go really in-depth into this but then I realized there wasn’t much to it. If you bound every key to sunder you could probably slam your head against the keyboard and not do TOO bad. At least if the rest of your group doesn’t suck.
I need to go get myself into an instance now, 5% off from my Crystalblade of the Draenai :)
Monday, March 10, 2008
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Alts alts alts!
So I mentioned in my first post that I had a retired 70 hunter. I’m going to bring him out of retirement I think, maybe just for a bit, and PvP with him.
My alt warrior, Gisli, is 65, has tanked the first four outlands instances as Arms, needs a new sword for tanking, and finally gotten the plate gloves off of the first boss in BF. In that same run only myself and a healer from my guild (an epic healer at that) were left alive on the last boss after miscommunications and big shadow bolt nova hits on the last boss. The boss had around 40%-50% life. We killed him.
I created a dwarf hunter on my brother’s server. Going to level him as survival, the only hunter tree I haven’t dabbled enough in.
My rogue can pick 225 boxes. Woot! I could have him sit in Org and offer to open those up for a tip, would probably net him a bit of cash.
My priest is rotting. Oh poor priest. I should play him some day.
I’m hanging up my hunter on Area 52 for the two ally hunters I have. Just can’t seem to get into leveling him as BM. Oh well.
I deleted a level 3 warlock on Area 52, just because I could. Really, I had no reason to, I just did it.
Alts are wonderful. I’ve got a PvP toy, another PvP toy that will probably be a heroics toy, a rogue (everyone needs a rogue! Lock picking ftw) and some others that are just random mess around alts. And they’re a great distraction for when I just don’t feel like standing around Shatt pretending I’m doing something.
I’m going to write up a little bit about tanking as Arms tomorrow at school, or maybe the next day as I really want to go into it a bit, but all this week I plan on having SOMETHING up every day, so there will be at least SOMETHING tomorrow. Let’s hope I can keep that rolling past this week ;)
My alt warrior, Gisli, is 65, has tanked the first four outlands instances as Arms, needs a new sword for tanking, and finally gotten the plate gloves off of the first boss in BF. In that same run only myself and a healer from my guild (an epic healer at that) were left alive on the last boss after miscommunications and big shadow bolt nova hits on the last boss. The boss had around 40%-50% life. We killed him.
I created a dwarf hunter on my brother’s server. Going to level him as survival, the only hunter tree I haven’t dabbled enough in.
My rogue can pick 225 boxes. Woot! I could have him sit in Org and offer to open those up for a tip, would probably net him a bit of cash.
My priest is rotting. Oh poor priest. I should play him some day.
I’m hanging up my hunter on Area 52 for the two ally hunters I have. Just can’t seem to get into leveling him as BM. Oh well.
I deleted a level 3 warlock on Area 52, just because I could. Really, I had no reason to, I just did it.
Alts are wonderful. I’ve got a PvP toy, another PvP toy that will probably be a heroics toy, a rogue (everyone needs a rogue! Lock picking ftw) and some others that are just random mess around alts. And they’re a great distraction for when I just don’t feel like standing around Shatt pretending I’m doing something.
I’m going to write up a little bit about tanking as Arms tomorrow at school, or maybe the next day as I really want to go into it a bit, but all this week I plan on having SOMETHING up every day, so there will be at least SOMETHING tomorrow. Let’s hope I can keep that rolling past this week ;)
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Zul'Aman
So I like Kara’s design, it’s pretty, it’s interesting, and it’s easy. Terribly, terribly easy. With the exception of Netherspite (get in the damned beams!), Nightbane (why do the skellies always kill the squishies?), and MAYBE Curator (if your gear is lacking and such) than there shouldn’t be that many problems. I’m not saying it’s a walk in the park, but its nowhere near the next 10man.
Zul’Aman. It’s not pretty, it’s still interesting, and it’s much harder. I’m not saying it’s necessarily hard, but the difference between it and Kara is astounding.
I ran ZA for the first time last night. Whoa. That was fun. I’ve not been in a really challenging instance since the last time I had a bad tank in a heroic. And we had two good tanks. It was cool; I actually had to pay attention.
All right, maybe I’m exaggerating about not paying attention, I mean, I have to make up for the other healers not being overly geared. Which is another thing I loved, I was, by far, the worst geared healer, and I was still pumping out good heals per second. I was at roughly 600HPS for most of the instance. The other paladin was around 650-700. The priest started low (500) but after the bear started to shoot up and ended at around 725HPS.
And I picked up a new chest piece (woot for a PvE epic chest, with mad MP5) but more importantly, woot for playing with a group at or above me in gear. I loved it. I want that. That was fun and that was engaging.
What is the reason for today’s post? Well, besides that I need to post something (I’ve been gone for too long! My 4 readers might start to miss me! :)) I wanted to note how matching your gear to what you’re doing and who you’re joining is only going to make you enjoy your time in game more.
If you’re in a guild, and you’ve got the same gear level as them, don’t leave! Work with your guild, which I hope you enjoy, making all of you better, and you’ll have lots of fun doing it. Trust me. Otherwise, you’re probably a greedy raider, so leave, and let all the decent people get their gear :). BUT if you’re looking for a guild, and you’ve left another guild for any reason, and you have pretty good gear, go with your gear level. You’ll make friends wherever you go. Unless you met some amazing player who’s all mighty and powerful and makes you so happy to be graced by their presence, even though their gear sucks, you want to be matched by your gear. It will help you get a bit more enjoyment out of the game.
I really liked going to Kara with my guild. I loved ZA with my friend’s guild.
It’s just that simple if you’re looking for a guild :)
Zul’Aman. It’s not pretty, it’s still interesting, and it’s much harder. I’m not saying it’s necessarily hard, but the difference between it and Kara is astounding.
I ran ZA for the first time last night. Whoa. That was fun. I’ve not been in a really challenging instance since the last time I had a bad tank in a heroic. And we had two good tanks. It was cool; I actually had to pay attention.
All right, maybe I’m exaggerating about not paying attention, I mean, I have to make up for the other healers not being overly geared. Which is another thing I loved, I was, by far, the worst geared healer, and I was still pumping out good heals per second. I was at roughly 600HPS for most of the instance. The other paladin was around 650-700. The priest started low (500) but after the bear started to shoot up and ended at around 725HPS.
And I picked up a new chest piece (woot for a PvE epic chest, with mad MP5) but more importantly, woot for playing with a group at or above me in gear. I loved it. I want that. That was fun and that was engaging.
What is the reason for today’s post? Well, besides that I need to post something (I’ve been gone for too long! My 4 readers might start to miss me! :)) I wanted to note how matching your gear to what you’re doing and who you’re joining is only going to make you enjoy your time in game more.
If you’re in a guild, and you’ve got the same gear level as them, don’t leave! Work with your guild, which I hope you enjoy, making all of you better, and you’ll have lots of fun doing it. Trust me. Otherwise, you’re probably a greedy raider, so leave, and let all the decent people get their gear :). BUT if you’re looking for a guild, and you’ve left another guild for any reason, and you have pretty good gear, go with your gear level. You’ll make friends wherever you go. Unless you met some amazing player who’s all mighty and powerful and makes you so happy to be graced by their presence, even though their gear sucks, you want to be matched by your gear. It will help you get a bit more enjoyment out of the game.
I really liked going to Kara with my guild. I loved ZA with my friend’s guild.
It’s just that simple if you’re looking for a guild :)
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Leveling alts
I’ve not been here very long, and I want to make sure that the habit of posting about Kara doesn’t become a style. So this post is going to mix it up some, and talk about alts.
First off, I hate (seriously, its hate) leveling casters. It has nothing to do with how they play, but more that they are so reliant on mana. I don’t like stopping every few fights to mana up. I can’t play a caster for very long before I get dreadfully tired, and wish I was doing something else. This is funny, because I really want to play a mage and priest end game, because the concept, even with all the drinking, just seems fun. Even with the taste of leveling them. Maybe I’m delusional, but I don’t see them with having anywhere near the mana problems of leveling casters (nor should they have the problems with decent gear!)
Leveling them has never seemed fun. The idea of drinking every few pulls has never seemed fun. But I’ve struggled with a priest up to 43, and another one up to 32, and a mage up to 38. And every time I’ve had fun in one area of the game.
Instances are great on caster alts. At least, if you have the mana dependency problems that I do, they are. I never find that I have to mana up so much, someone else is taking the hurt for me, and I’m working with people. I play this game for the people more than anything else, so maybe the next time I take up the mantle of clothie I should just try a good instance grind to 70.
Melee characters are a whole different game. Gear dependency as a melee class is insane, but your ability to grind is equally so. It makes doing world quests easy, fun, entertaining, and is likely a major reason in why so many people are warriors and rogues.
The proof behind the gear dependency can be displayed through my two highest level alts, my rogue Suterusu and my warrior Gisli. Gisli got every new weapon that was an improvement for him as fast as possible. I bought an AH sword for 90g (instead of getting my epic mount, I bought a sword :) and got a frost wolf instead) that he uses right now, and is a great sword for leveling. Suterusu has never strained to get weapons. I had both the SM and RFD quests for swords in my bag, and I never got them, simply because I don’t like those instances. Gisli is going to be my next 70. Suterusu I have to strain myself to play, because his DPS is so abysmal that he has problems killing mobs his level.
Casters on the other hand don’t gain anywhere near as much from gear. A bit of intellect (for less mana problems) and stamina (for less death problems) is about all that you really care about while leveling. Spell damage, hit, and crit are just nice bonuses.
So now pick your poison, gear dependency or mana problems. I’m a gear dependency sort of person, but that might only be because they don’t have mana bandages ;)
One side note; hunters fall in neither of these categories. They can successfully get to 70 with level 20ish gear, which means no mana and little DPS of their own. I’m not saying that at 70 they take no skill (in fact, I place them as one of the hardest classes to do really well in anything besides solo play), but if you want an easy class to get to 70, hunters are it.
First off, I hate (seriously, its hate) leveling casters. It has nothing to do with how they play, but more that they are so reliant on mana. I don’t like stopping every few fights to mana up. I can’t play a caster for very long before I get dreadfully tired, and wish I was doing something else. This is funny, because I really want to play a mage and priest end game, because the concept, even with all the drinking, just seems fun. Even with the taste of leveling them. Maybe I’m delusional, but I don’t see them with having anywhere near the mana problems of leveling casters (nor should they have the problems with decent gear!)
Leveling them has never seemed fun. The idea of drinking every few pulls has never seemed fun. But I’ve struggled with a priest up to 43, and another one up to 32, and a mage up to 38. And every time I’ve had fun in one area of the game.
Instances are great on caster alts. At least, if you have the mana dependency problems that I do, they are. I never find that I have to mana up so much, someone else is taking the hurt for me, and I’m working with people. I play this game for the people more than anything else, so maybe the next time I take up the mantle of clothie I should just try a good instance grind to 70.
Melee characters are a whole different game. Gear dependency as a melee class is insane, but your ability to grind is equally so. It makes doing world quests easy, fun, entertaining, and is likely a major reason in why so many people are warriors and rogues.
The proof behind the gear dependency can be displayed through my two highest level alts, my rogue Suterusu and my warrior Gisli. Gisli got every new weapon that was an improvement for him as fast as possible. I bought an AH sword for 90g (instead of getting my epic mount, I bought a sword :) and got a frost wolf instead) that he uses right now, and is a great sword for leveling. Suterusu has never strained to get weapons. I had both the SM and RFD quests for swords in my bag, and I never got them, simply because I don’t like those instances. Gisli is going to be my next 70. Suterusu I have to strain myself to play, because his DPS is so abysmal that he has problems killing mobs his level.
Casters on the other hand don’t gain anywhere near as much from gear. A bit of intellect (for less mana problems) and stamina (for less death problems) is about all that you really care about while leveling. Spell damage, hit, and crit are just nice bonuses.
So now pick your poison, gear dependency or mana problems. I’m a gear dependency sort of person, but that might only be because they don’t have mana bandages ;)
One side note; hunters fall in neither of these categories. They can successfully get to 70 with level 20ish gear, which means no mana and little DPS of their own. I’m not saying that at 70 they take no skill (in fact, I place them as one of the hardest classes to do really well in anything besides solo play), but if you want an easy class to get to 70, hunters are it.
Feed me!
Ok, honestly, I just wanted to make that joke. I do have a nifty little feed thing on the page now though, and I'm sure my subscribers will be abysmally low for the time being, but hey, I keep sitemeter around because I'm so interested in how many views I get, might as well have some way of knowing how many subscribers I have :)
Learning in Kara =O
First off, I just want to say, this post is dedicated to Rhoe! Thanks Rhoe, for all the hard work you’ve done! You’ll be proudly placed on my blog roll minutes after I’m done with this post.
ANYWAYS, I’m going to write a little bit about maximizing healing as a holy paladin in Kara with gear that destroys the place and a druid who manages to keep almost everyone in the raid topped 90% of the time.
So I was in Kara last night. First time with the new guild, and it was a very….enlightening….run. The group got up to Opera (fell short of their normal stopping point at Curator due to new people and starting late). A good deal of the raid was new to raiding or had never raided with the guild before. At least, that’s what I gathered during the run.
While I definitely won’t argue guild policies (especially being a new member and that being my first run) I will point out that the group had more potential than we used. Yes, we had 2 wipes. One of them was due to someone not knowing that Maiden has a very large aggro range and we were positioning for her. The other, a missed kick on Julianne (or whatever her name is o_o). These weren’t really skill issues though. The healers were all amazing (I’ll try to get the screen cap of the healing meters I took, I wish I had run recount, but I decided not to because it was my first run with the guild and I didn’t to be focused on something so trivial).
But all in all it was a good run, and I learned something I hadn’t ever really noticed before. See, I was a good deal, the best geared healer. Does that make me the best? Not by a long shot. I’ve out-healed plenty of people with better gear, but that has more to do with timing than with judgment. But EVERY other run I’ve been on to Kara I’ve been the low man on the totem pole of healing gear (except that time when we got replacements…but I refuse to call that a run :)). So I’ve always had to be fast on my heals, or else I’d be useless. I do mean useless, because I can barely recall any fight short of that PUG I went on that my heals were really *needed* and so I was more of a safety than anything else.
And I was maybe just a safety in this run too, but I was actually given a tank to heal, and I recall a few times where it was good I could toss a FoL over to the main tank, because he might not have needed it, but I’m sure both he and his healer wanted it. On that note, my FoLs matter because we had light on the tanks, and a tree in their group. My FoL crits were HUGE.
So my job was to heal the off tank and secondly to be a spot healer for the raid. Cool enough, I normally end up as a spot healer anyways. But man oh man is it different to know that you’re the back up to the druid and the main healer for the tank, instead of back up for the main healers and more in charge of dealing with the raid.
Judgment is much more important than timing now. As a spot healer, you have to just pick and spam. It’s not that hard, and it more requires cognizance of AoE damage, who is most likely to be hit, and who is already lacking a bit of health. Not difficult.
Tank healing has a different spin on it. You KNOW your tank is going to be damaged. You also know that the druid in the group is likely going to have a HoT on him, and he’s not going to be taking as much of a beating from the mobs as someone who wasn’t a tank would. So now judgment comes into play. You can focus solely on your tank, and only try to toss out a heal if someone looks like they are in an emergency. With a low mana pool, this might make more sense. But it makes for a bad healer.
Ok, ok, it’s probably not a case that the healer is BAD. However, you’re not contributing as much as you could. And that’s what limits potentially great raids. So what do you do? You use judgment.
Every single healer should have some form of UI interface that shows them everybody’s health bars. I use XPerl. I’m sure there are others. I think Blizzards basic interface even has a clunky version. JUST MAKE SURE YOU CAN SEE EVERYONE’S HEALTH.
Next, make sure you know the power of your heals. This is more important to what I like to call the comfort zone. I don’t like anyone falling below 80%. Anyone. And that is my comfort zone. If everyone has greater than 80%, I’m fine and dandy and skippy. When people start to fall below, I start to get more serious. I then start to pick my heals very carefully, because if they’re consistently falling that much, then I know I need to be watching more health bars more carefully. Maybe I should be starting to toss heals out more judiciously.
Let me give you an example. Maiden last night had 3 melee (2 rogues and a warrior tank), 4 healers (the main tank was a paladin and he stepped back to help heal), and 3 ranged DPS (2 warlocks and a hunter). I was assigned at the beginning of the raid to the warrior tanking Maiden. With 2 more free healers though (main tank to healer meant that his healer would be freed up) I was certain that I could more carefully watch my tanks bars and not be so worried with everyone else.
Not so. Not at all. I don’t really know what happened, but I think the main tank was taking a lot more damage than I thought he would, and the 2 “free” healers were mainly focused on him. That or everyone in the raid was taking a lot more, so the additional heals were needed to keep everyone up. Again, I’m not sure, but EVERYONE was taking some major heat from her. And only one person died (It was a warlock, and I think he got holy fired twice in a row, and we didn’t heal him fast enough between them). But I had to carefully watch much more than just the tanks. “My” melee to BoS was a rogue, and he was my second priority after the tank. Then I had to prioritize the rest. This is what I came up with.
Tank => “My” Rogue => Myself => Holy Paladin 2 => Tree => Prot Paladin => Rogue 2 => Warlock 1 + Warlock 2
Notice there is only 9 people on that list, the hunter was left out because of her position adjacent to me, and therefore, LoS’d due to a pillar.
And so I watched everyone’s health, and judged according to that list and their health to see who gets my current FoL.
I really liked how it worked out. I think I noticed a slight improvement on my mana efficiency (and considering that the tanks were getting for more, this was impressive) and I noticed lots of less overhealing, because I was letting the druid pick up those who needed a heal less.
So, great run, learned some stuff, got some badges (I think I’ll pick up the badge shield next, unless I get the Kara shield this run through, because quite frankly, I need that shield way more than I need any of the other very tempting pieces :)).
Here’s to Friday being just as great a run!
ANYWAYS, I’m going to write a little bit about maximizing healing as a holy paladin in Kara with gear that destroys the place and a druid who manages to keep almost everyone in the raid topped 90% of the time.
So I was in Kara last night. First time with the new guild, and it was a very….enlightening….run. The group got up to Opera (fell short of their normal stopping point at Curator due to new people and starting late). A good deal of the raid was new to raiding or had never raided with the guild before. At least, that’s what I gathered during the run.
While I definitely won’t argue guild policies (especially being a new member and that being my first run) I will point out that the group had more potential than we used. Yes, we had 2 wipes. One of them was due to someone not knowing that Maiden has a very large aggro range and we were positioning for her. The other, a missed kick on Julianne (or whatever her name is o_o). These weren’t really skill issues though. The healers were all amazing (I’ll try to get the screen cap of the healing meters I took, I wish I had run recount, but I decided not to because it was my first run with the guild and I didn’t to be focused on something so trivial).
But all in all it was a good run, and I learned something I hadn’t ever really noticed before. See, I was a good deal, the best geared healer. Does that make me the best? Not by a long shot. I’ve out-healed plenty of people with better gear, but that has more to do with timing than with judgment. But EVERY other run I’ve been on to Kara I’ve been the low man on the totem pole of healing gear (except that time when we got replacements…but I refuse to call that a run :)). So I’ve always had to be fast on my heals, or else I’d be useless. I do mean useless, because I can barely recall any fight short of that PUG I went on that my heals were really *needed* and so I was more of a safety than anything else.
And I was maybe just a safety in this run too, but I was actually given a tank to heal, and I recall a few times where it was good I could toss a FoL over to the main tank, because he might not have needed it, but I’m sure both he and his healer wanted it. On that note, my FoLs matter because we had light on the tanks, and a tree in their group. My FoL crits were HUGE.
So my job was to heal the off tank and secondly to be a spot healer for the raid. Cool enough, I normally end up as a spot healer anyways. But man oh man is it different to know that you’re the back up to the druid and the main healer for the tank, instead of back up for the main healers and more in charge of dealing with the raid.
Judgment is much more important than timing now. As a spot healer, you have to just pick and spam. It’s not that hard, and it more requires cognizance of AoE damage, who is most likely to be hit, and who is already lacking a bit of health. Not difficult.
Tank healing has a different spin on it. You KNOW your tank is going to be damaged. You also know that the druid in the group is likely going to have a HoT on him, and he’s not going to be taking as much of a beating from the mobs as someone who wasn’t a tank would. So now judgment comes into play. You can focus solely on your tank, and only try to toss out a heal if someone looks like they are in an emergency. With a low mana pool, this might make more sense. But it makes for a bad healer.
Ok, ok, it’s probably not a case that the healer is BAD. However, you’re not contributing as much as you could. And that’s what limits potentially great raids. So what do you do? You use judgment.
Every single healer should have some form of UI interface that shows them everybody’s health bars. I use XPerl. I’m sure there are others. I think Blizzards basic interface even has a clunky version. JUST MAKE SURE YOU CAN SEE EVERYONE’S HEALTH.
Next, make sure you know the power of your heals. This is more important to what I like to call the comfort zone. I don’t like anyone falling below 80%. Anyone. And that is my comfort zone. If everyone has greater than 80%, I’m fine and dandy and skippy. When people start to fall below, I start to get more serious. I then start to pick my heals very carefully, because if they’re consistently falling that much, then I know I need to be watching more health bars more carefully. Maybe I should be starting to toss heals out more judiciously.
Let me give you an example. Maiden last night had 3 melee (2 rogues and a warrior tank), 4 healers (the main tank was a paladin and he stepped back to help heal), and 3 ranged DPS (2 warlocks and a hunter). I was assigned at the beginning of the raid to the warrior tanking Maiden. With 2 more free healers though (main tank to healer meant that his healer would be freed up) I was certain that I could more carefully watch my tanks bars and not be so worried with everyone else.
Not so. Not at all. I don’t really know what happened, but I think the main tank was taking a lot more damage than I thought he would, and the 2 “free” healers were mainly focused on him. That or everyone in the raid was taking a lot more, so the additional heals were needed to keep everyone up. Again, I’m not sure, but EVERYONE was taking some major heat from her. And only one person died (It was a warlock, and I think he got holy fired twice in a row, and we didn’t heal him fast enough between them). But I had to carefully watch much more than just the tanks. “My” melee to BoS was a rogue, and he was my second priority after the tank. Then I had to prioritize the rest. This is what I came up with.
Tank => “My” Rogue => Myself => Holy Paladin 2 => Tree => Prot Paladin => Rogue 2 => Warlock 1 + Warlock 2
Notice there is only 9 people on that list, the hunter was left out because of her position adjacent to me, and therefore, LoS’d due to a pillar.
And so I watched everyone’s health, and judged according to that list and their health to see who gets my current FoL.
I really liked how it worked out. I think I noticed a slight improvement on my mana efficiency (and considering that the tanks were getting for more, this was impressive) and I noticed lots of less overhealing, because I was letting the druid pick up those who needed a heal less.
So, great run, learned some stuff, got some badges (I think I’ll pick up the badge shield next, unless I get the Kara shield this run through, because quite frankly, I need that shield way more than I need any of the other very tempting pieces :)).
Here’s to Friday being just as great a run!
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Blog Azeroth
Welcome Blog Azeroth members! I hope o_o
I found Blog Azeroth from….Dodge! Parry! Spin! (Edit: I was wrong, it's Parry! Dodge! Spin!) I think….I’ll have to check when I get back to school tomorrow, and while I have no idea if anyone is actually clicking on the link that I put in the introduction post, I’m going to assume they are :). I'm loving the idea of Blog Azeroth, and I hope it helps get me motivated to really push out some cool articles (and help me find a way to present them well!)
So anyone from Blog Azeroth, or anywhere, hi, welcome to my little blog (with a whole 2 people reading it before you guys!) I hope you have a good time, and someone comments on a post so I get motivated enough to post something cool ;)
I found Blog Azeroth from….Dodge! Parry! Spin! (Edit: I was wrong, it's Parry! Dodge! Spin!) I think….I’ll have to check when I get back to school tomorrow, and while I have no idea if anyone is actually clicking on the link that I put in the introduction post, I’m going to assume they are :). I'm loving the idea of Blog Azeroth, and I hope it helps get me motivated to really push out some cool articles (and help me find a way to present them well!)
So anyone from Blog Azeroth, or anywhere, hi, welcome to my little blog (with a whole 2 people reading it before you guys!) I hope you have a good time, and someone comments on a post so I get motivated enough to post something cool ;)
Monday, February 25, 2008
Arenas, PvP, and get me an insta-cast heal.
Arenas. It seems to be that you either love them or hate them or want to jab your eyes out every time you remember you're on a team.
From the pretty picture now painted in your head, guess which bracket I fall in :).
Yes! You’re right! The 1400 bracket! (And, coincidentally, I’m also in the jab your eyes out bracket. Maybe it’s because we suck? Or maybe because I get locked down almost every fight. -_- May I haz an insta-cast heal that doesn't suck now? Holy Shock is just....sad :()
Ok, well, that’s as of today, my team still sucks (its just me and my girlfriend, and we do OK, but we lose to stupid things, like me getting earth shocked and than bursted down in like 2 seconds), we went 6-4 (should have been 7-3, or maybe even 8-2, but it’s all good, we still got to our goal), and we’re EXACTLY 1400, but still, WE MADE IT!
For the past 3-4 weeks, we’ve been trying. REAL hard, closest we got before royally screwing up? 1390. That was last week’s rating :).
But we made it! And besides the over-poweredness of cyclone, had a good time!
Seriously, I’m not asking for it to be nerfed, just, give me a way to not be stuck in there for what, 22ish seconds (first is like 12, than 8, than 2, right? I don’t even know, we’ve normally lost by that time @_@)? My bubble doesn’t even break it, and trust me my team, especially due to our low health and resilience, doesn’t have even 15 seconds where I can be completely disabled if we’re going to win.
But it’s all good, cause we made it.
And, right before our last 2 games (which were wins) I became guilded.
Yes, I have been unguilded for quite a while. And I’m back in the guilded scene. It’s just a Kara level guild (although I hope they’re planning on moving up to Gruul’s soon @_@) but it’s SOMETHING, and it has two cool people I’ve met in my travels on the server in it.
So I may have Kara stories, or tips, or tricks, or even (gasp) cool little guides with (badly) drawn maps/paint art in them.
Because sometimes, WoWWiki just doesn’t cut it ;)
Now I just need to go honor farm for the better PvP trinket….guess I’ll start that tomorrow >.
From the pretty picture now painted in your head, guess which bracket I fall in :).
Yes! You’re right! The 1400 bracket! (And, coincidentally, I’m also in the jab your eyes out bracket. Maybe it’s because we suck? Or maybe because I get locked down almost every fight. -_- May I haz an insta-cast heal that doesn't suck now? Holy Shock is just....sad :()
Ok, well, that’s as of today, my team still sucks (its just me and my girlfriend, and we do OK, but we lose to stupid things, like me getting earth shocked and than bursted down in like 2 seconds), we went 6-4 (should have been 7-3, or maybe even 8-2, but it’s all good, we still got to our goal), and we’re EXACTLY 1400, but still, WE MADE IT!
For the past 3-4 weeks, we’ve been trying. REAL hard, closest we got before royally screwing up? 1390. That was last week’s rating :).
But we made it! And besides the over-poweredness of cyclone, had a good time!
Seriously, I’m not asking for it to be nerfed, just, give me a way to not be stuck in there for what, 22ish seconds (first is like 12, than 8, than 2, right? I don’t even know, we’ve normally lost by that time @_@)? My bubble doesn’t even break it, and trust me my team, especially due to our low health and resilience, doesn’t have even 15 seconds where I can be completely disabled if we’re going to win.
But it’s all good, cause we made it.
And, right before our last 2 games (which were wins) I became guilded.
Yes, I have been unguilded for quite a while. And I’m back in the guilded scene. It’s just a Kara level guild (although I hope they’re planning on moving up to Gruul’s soon @_@) but it’s SOMETHING, and it has two cool people I’ve met in my travels on the server in it.
So I may have Kara stories, or tips, or tricks, or even (gasp) cool little guides with (badly) drawn maps/paint art in them.
Because sometimes, WoWWiki just doesn’t cut it ;)
Now I just need to go honor farm for the better PvP trinket….guess I’ll start that tomorrow >.
Friday, February 22, 2008
Kara o_o
I'm back in Kara for the night. Interesting group (and a PUG). More detailed report after we're done, we have a "pee/beer" break, so I figured post this up to force myself into writing something more detailed
Edit:
So. Kara. Yea.
Did I ever mention that Kara is beautiful? It is beautiful. If I could get by and see all the mobs without them attacking me, I would live in Kara.
The place is gorgeous.
The group for the first half (up to Curator) was over powered. Seriously, the worst geared members were the tanks, and a 1 hunter >.>, and they had a scattering of token epics, a bit of Kara epics, and some blues. They weren’t bad off, but due to them being paladins, Nightbane seemed more risky then continuing up the tower and hitting on Prince.
If you want to know why, don’t ask me, I have no idea. :D I’ve only ever done Nightbane once, and Prince never.
Clearing to Attumen worried me. I didn’t need to heal anyone besides the t5 1200 spell damage shadow priest who was (like any good shadow priest) casting power word: death with any frequency. Attumen, even without the group bunching up on his butt, went down without me breaking a sweat. I didn’t pop consumables until right before Moroes, because I didn’t want to risk Mr. “Make everyone bleed and die if they aren’t healed enough because the only Paladin with the wits to bubble someone besides themselves can only do it once every 3 minutes”. And it turns out its good I did.
See, there is a reason why I said I was the only one with the wits to bubble anyone besides myself. BOTH tanks said “lol it’s good off tank tanks adds we kill them main tank tanks Moroes no worries no worries”. Now, it didn’t occur to me which fight we were on. I’d only ever done Moroes twice before (in fact, the only bosses in Kara I’ve done twice before this run are Attumen, Moroes, Maiden). But when he gouged the tank the first time, I saw what was happening, and remembered why no one ever tanks the adds on Moroes. For those of you who don’t know, Moroes does a gouge which incapacitates the tank, and then he goes and picks the person next highest on his aggro list. Of course, the group heals priest was 2nd, followed by all the DPS except the hunter, then the 2nd priest, who was really only focusing on the main tank, and then me, who was whistling away the time while spamming FoL on anyone below 80%. And oh did my finger get its exercise.
But, with 2 DPS left, the main tank, the off tank, and the main tank’s personal priest, they managed to down him. I was the last person to die, and that was due to the excessive amount of holy light crits I was pumping into the tank after he fell so low from…well…I’m not really sure, I just know he got to below 40% and didn’t want to come back up that well. I mean, when I have to cast 3 6k heals on you to get you to the comfort zone of 80% and up, I get disturbed.
So we rezzed up, and we moved on, and the healing all got called incredibly op due to saving the group from ridiculous amounts of damage from pulling 2-3 of those non-elite mob packs in the area around Moroes, and we got to Maiden, and took her down.
Now, if you’re following, we had 2 paladins as tanks. And Maiden silences. So you’re thinking “wow, that must have been a tough fight!”
Easiest. Fight. Ever.
I don’t even know why, but she went down REALLY fast with NO problems. I don’t even think the DPS had to let up on their damage that much.
So we went on to the Opera, and it’s the Crone. Now, I’ve never done ANY of the opera events (even though I wish I could. I want the trinket and the book :D.) and I had no clue what to expect.
Let me sum it up in one word; Chaos.
We didn’t have a mage to rust the tin man, and for whatever reason, I don’t think we tried to have the hunter rust him with frost traps. Does that even work? I really have no clue; I just heard that frost spells rust him. We had the chain fears at least, and searing pain on the scarecrow. Dorothy dropped fast both times, and while on the first try we did have 3 deaths, it didn’t seem all that bad. And yes, we did have 2 tries. He reset in the middle of the first attempt. Why? Don’t ask me, I have NO idea. I just stood at the edge of the mage and spammed heals again XP.
Then we wanted to go out and come back in through the back door for Curator. The main tank and DPS warrior didn’t hear this. I followed them, not really knowing where to go. Well, it ended up that the rest of the group had left the instance (duh, they wanted to reenter from the top) and the main tank wasn’t paying attention. Silly me had no clue where to go.
Then the main tank aggroed three mobs. Two elites and one non-elite I think. All I know is that they died. And that I healed and healed and healed and healed and healed. We then got the point; this was not where we needed to be. Went back down through the stage and BAM I got too close to the side, here comes a mob. Tank picks him up; the mob is doing massive damage, only got the DPS warrior DPSing, and only me on heals, but we can’t just let ourselves die. POW WAM BLAMO (I holy shocked at the end XP) the mob was dead. And I had next to no mana. So while I was manaing up (because if that happened again, we needed me to have mana) the tank kneeled before me and called me a god of a healer. Yes, yes, /flex-my-epeen.
At that point everyone was tired of waiting for us. Summoned us up, we were on our way again. Few minutes later, the Curator looms ahead of us. I’ve never done this fight, and about 2-3 others had either. That’s almost half the raid, and no one bothered to explain it. Let me just say, the healers broke the healing meters on that fight. We kept everyone up for about 5 minutes, and this was with chain lightning hitting rampantly, you know, cause people don’t have DBM and don’t realize they are too close to other people. Finally, one priest died, and the other one OOMed (I think, he sort of stopped healing at least o_o), and I was only able to sustain about another 30 seconds or so of keeping everyone else up.
Oh well, we got the point, stay away from each other, and beat on Curator when he’s evocating. And just a few minutes after everyone was back, Curator dropped me some fancy badges.
The whole night was a warlock night by the way. They seemed to be winning everything, and when their glove token dropped, no one was surprised one of the warlocks won it. But he needed it, so gratz were quickly spread.
At that point, the tank had to leave. Now, no one else was in DIRE need to leave, but the tank was leaving, and they didn’t want to wait around.
Within 2 minutes the raid was 4 out of 10. Well, those of us still there wanted to do more. So we did. Took us another half an hour to find more people, got 2 mages this time, a tree, a resto shaman, only one tank (I was told that’s all you need after Curator) and an enhancement shaman. Now, I was getting a bit tired, and figured, they’re PUGing it, they probably have gear as good as mine :D.
Oh. My. Goshles.
The tank was better geared than his predecessors. He was also a paladin. But he was a bit snarky, and I’d have rather have the two who left over him any day. But no matter, nothing I could do about that. We pushed on. Got up to shade with little hassle. As I said earlier, the healing meter was broken, so I didn’t bother to check up on the other two new healers, although I did find I was using a lot more mana (10%-15% for trash fights up to 20%-30%). I, however, chocked that up to more difficult fights, or at least more damaging fights. It didn’t occur to me I was the only one putting out sufficient amounts of healing power.
We get to Shade, not too many problems; we’re all buffed up, psyched and ready to go, because Shade is easysauce. And we wipe.
Not only did we wipe, but we got destroyed. The first thing Shade did was Flame wreath. One of the new shamans (I think the enhance one) wasn’t up next to Shade when this happened. And he wanted to be. So he wiped half the raid. I only survived due to my bubble. The resto shaman also managed to stay alive for a second (the druid died if someone sneezed wrong, seriously, 6k health in Kara? Thank you, please don’t come again.) Note how I said a second. He didn’t realize that those weird falling icicles from the sky kill you! Who would have guessed! Regardless, I kept myself, the tank, and I think a warlock, alive for long enough for Aran to drop down to about 70%. He then proceeded to pull us in to AE us, and the warlock didn’t move out. Oh well, a tank and a healer weren’t bringing him down, and I was told to run towards the door to get a DI. Of course, without my healing, the tank died before I could make the run across the room while avoiding the blizzard.
So much for that =\.
So the stupid shaman who ran during flame wreath got yelled at. Then he told us he needed to repair. /sigh took his time too. Took so long, two people dc’d; the tank and the DPS warrior. /sigh again. So I checked out some people’s armories, the healers specifically, because I wasn’t going to just give up, damn it I want to see Prince! Well, turns out both of the other healers had below +1000 +heal.
/boggle
I can barely remember when mine was that low. I was still running SV for the hat, and a few other places. I ended up getting enough AH pieces, a few mail and cloth pieces, and enchants to bump me up to about +1100 +heal. I THEN decided I could TRY Kara. And I did alright, on the first few bosses, and they bumped my healing up greatly. I since have done heroics, gotten a few things here and there, and now I feel ready for end of Kara, maybe some ZA, Gruul’s, possibly Maggy. I have a nice +heal of 1620 (unbuffed).
I don’t know, maybe my expectations are too high. But still, if you’re going to do a PUG of a raid instance, come in with better gear than you’d need to run it with a guild.
Anyways, I just sort of got disheartened after that. And the group was looking like it was going to die anyways, so I /hearthed
A bad end to a good night, even with some real life issues going on in the background; still I hope I can spend a bit more time in Kara, or ZA, or any of the raids, cause I had some mad fun. :D
4 pages (on MS word) later and I’m done! I need to learn how to condense some XP.
Edit:
So. Kara. Yea.
Did I ever mention that Kara is beautiful? It is beautiful. If I could get by and see all the mobs without them attacking me, I would live in Kara.
The place is gorgeous.
The group for the first half (up to Curator) was over powered. Seriously, the worst geared members were the tanks, and a 1 hunter >.>, and they had a scattering of token epics, a bit of Kara epics, and some blues. They weren’t bad off, but due to them being paladins, Nightbane seemed more risky then continuing up the tower and hitting on Prince.
If you want to know why, don’t ask me, I have no idea. :D I’ve only ever done Nightbane once, and Prince never.
Clearing to Attumen worried me. I didn’t need to heal anyone besides the t5 1200 spell damage shadow priest who was (like any good shadow priest) casting power word: death with any frequency. Attumen, even without the group bunching up on his butt, went down without me breaking a sweat. I didn’t pop consumables until right before Moroes, because I didn’t want to risk Mr. “Make everyone bleed and die if they aren’t healed enough because the only Paladin with the wits to bubble someone besides themselves can only do it once every 3 minutes”. And it turns out its good I did.
See, there is a reason why I said I was the only one with the wits to bubble anyone besides myself. BOTH tanks said “lol it’s good off tank tanks adds we kill them main tank tanks Moroes no worries no worries”. Now, it didn’t occur to me which fight we were on. I’d only ever done Moroes twice before (in fact, the only bosses in Kara I’ve done twice before this run are Attumen, Moroes, Maiden). But when he gouged the tank the first time, I saw what was happening, and remembered why no one ever tanks the adds on Moroes. For those of you who don’t know, Moroes does a gouge which incapacitates the tank, and then he goes and picks the person next highest on his aggro list. Of course, the group heals priest was 2nd, followed by all the DPS except the hunter, then the 2nd priest, who was really only focusing on the main tank, and then me, who was whistling away the time while spamming FoL on anyone below 80%. And oh did my finger get its exercise.
But, with 2 DPS left, the main tank, the off tank, and the main tank’s personal priest, they managed to down him. I was the last person to die, and that was due to the excessive amount of holy light crits I was pumping into the tank after he fell so low from…well…I’m not really sure, I just know he got to below 40% and didn’t want to come back up that well. I mean, when I have to cast 3 6k heals on you to get you to the comfort zone of 80% and up, I get disturbed.
So we rezzed up, and we moved on, and the healing all got called incredibly op due to saving the group from ridiculous amounts of damage from pulling 2-3 of those non-elite mob packs in the area around Moroes, and we got to Maiden, and took her down.
Now, if you’re following, we had 2 paladins as tanks. And Maiden silences. So you’re thinking “wow, that must have been a tough fight!”
Easiest. Fight. Ever.
I don’t even know why, but she went down REALLY fast with NO problems. I don’t even think the DPS had to let up on their damage that much.
So we went on to the Opera, and it’s the Crone. Now, I’ve never done ANY of the opera events (even though I wish I could. I want the trinket and the book :D.) and I had no clue what to expect.
Let me sum it up in one word; Chaos.
We didn’t have a mage to rust the tin man, and for whatever reason, I don’t think we tried to have the hunter rust him with frost traps. Does that even work? I really have no clue; I just heard that frost spells rust him. We had the chain fears at least, and searing pain on the scarecrow. Dorothy dropped fast both times, and while on the first try we did have 3 deaths, it didn’t seem all that bad. And yes, we did have 2 tries. He reset in the middle of the first attempt. Why? Don’t ask me, I have NO idea. I just stood at the edge of the mage and spammed heals again XP.
Then we wanted to go out and come back in through the back door for Curator. The main tank and DPS warrior didn’t hear this. I followed them, not really knowing where to go. Well, it ended up that the rest of the group had left the instance (duh, they wanted to reenter from the top) and the main tank wasn’t paying attention. Silly me had no clue where to go.
Then the main tank aggroed three mobs. Two elites and one non-elite I think. All I know is that they died. And that I healed and healed and healed and healed and healed. We then got the point; this was not where we needed to be. Went back down through the stage and BAM I got too close to the side, here comes a mob. Tank picks him up; the mob is doing massive damage, only got the DPS warrior DPSing, and only me on heals, but we can’t just let ourselves die. POW WAM BLAMO (I holy shocked at the end XP) the mob was dead. And I had next to no mana. So while I was manaing up (because if that happened again, we needed me to have mana) the tank kneeled before me and called me a god of a healer. Yes, yes, /flex-my-epeen.
At that point everyone was tired of waiting for us. Summoned us up, we were on our way again. Few minutes later, the Curator looms ahead of us. I’ve never done this fight, and about 2-3 others had either. That’s almost half the raid, and no one bothered to explain it. Let me just say, the healers broke the healing meters on that fight. We kept everyone up for about 5 minutes, and this was with chain lightning hitting rampantly, you know, cause people don’t have DBM and don’t realize they are too close to other people. Finally, one priest died, and the other one OOMed (I think, he sort of stopped healing at least o_o), and I was only able to sustain about another 30 seconds or so of keeping everyone else up.
Oh well, we got the point, stay away from each other, and beat on Curator when he’s evocating. And just a few minutes after everyone was back, Curator dropped me some fancy badges.
The whole night was a warlock night by the way. They seemed to be winning everything, and when their glove token dropped, no one was surprised one of the warlocks won it. But he needed it, so gratz were quickly spread.
At that point, the tank had to leave. Now, no one else was in DIRE need to leave, but the tank was leaving, and they didn’t want to wait around.
Within 2 minutes the raid was 4 out of 10. Well, those of us still there wanted to do more. So we did. Took us another half an hour to find more people, got 2 mages this time, a tree, a resto shaman, only one tank (I was told that’s all you need after Curator) and an enhancement shaman. Now, I was getting a bit tired, and figured, they’re PUGing it, they probably have gear as good as mine :D.
Oh. My. Goshles.
The tank was better geared than his predecessors. He was also a paladin. But he was a bit snarky, and I’d have rather have the two who left over him any day. But no matter, nothing I could do about that. We pushed on. Got up to shade with little hassle. As I said earlier, the healing meter was broken, so I didn’t bother to check up on the other two new healers, although I did find I was using a lot more mana (10%-15% for trash fights up to 20%-30%). I, however, chocked that up to more difficult fights, or at least more damaging fights. It didn’t occur to me I was the only one putting out sufficient amounts of healing power.
We get to Shade, not too many problems; we’re all buffed up, psyched and ready to go, because Shade is easysauce. And we wipe.
Not only did we wipe, but we got destroyed. The first thing Shade did was Flame wreath. One of the new shamans (I think the enhance one) wasn’t up next to Shade when this happened. And he wanted to be. So he wiped half the raid. I only survived due to my bubble. The resto shaman also managed to stay alive for a second (the druid died if someone sneezed wrong, seriously, 6k health in Kara? Thank you, please don’t come again.) Note how I said a second. He didn’t realize that those weird falling icicles from the sky kill you! Who would have guessed! Regardless, I kept myself, the tank, and I think a warlock, alive for long enough for Aran to drop down to about 70%. He then proceeded to pull us in to AE us, and the warlock didn’t move out. Oh well, a tank and a healer weren’t bringing him down, and I was told to run towards the door to get a DI. Of course, without my healing, the tank died before I could make the run across the room while avoiding the blizzard.
So much for that =\.
So the stupid shaman who ran during flame wreath got yelled at. Then he told us he needed to repair. /sigh took his time too. Took so long, two people dc’d; the tank and the DPS warrior. /sigh again. So I checked out some people’s armories, the healers specifically, because I wasn’t going to just give up, damn it I want to see Prince! Well, turns out both of the other healers had below +1000 +heal.
/boggle
I can barely remember when mine was that low. I was still running SV for the hat, and a few other places. I ended up getting enough AH pieces, a few mail and cloth pieces, and enchants to bump me up to about +1100 +heal. I THEN decided I could TRY Kara. And I did alright, on the first few bosses, and they bumped my healing up greatly. I since have done heroics, gotten a few things here and there, and now I feel ready for end of Kara, maybe some ZA, Gruul’s, possibly Maggy. I have a nice +heal of 1620 (unbuffed).
I don’t know, maybe my expectations are too high. But still, if you’re going to do a PUG of a raid instance, come in with better gear than you’d need to run it with a guild.
Anyways, I just sort of got disheartened after that. And the group was looking like it was going to die anyways, so I /hearthed
A bad end to a good night, even with some real life issues going on in the background; still I hope I can spend a bit more time in Kara, or ZA, or any of the raids, cause I had some mad fun. :D
4 pages (on MS word) later and I’m done! I need to learn how to condense some XP.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
"If you CC one more time, so help me god"
This is a story about a Protection Paladin in the middle of Uldaman... yes, Uldaman. What the fuck, are you deaf?
The party
Protection Paladin (Group Leader, Tank)
Holy Priest (Healer)
Feral Druid (DPS, back up healer)
Subtlety Rogue (DPS)
And... a Mage (Worst ever)
I'm sure you, the reader, by now know ALL ABOUT Uldaman. Yeah, it's narrow, and clusterfuck full of mobs. Be, being a tankadin, is AoEing the shit out of everything while my guys are killing the skull-marked mob.
I lay down a consecrate, swing at mob, another consecrate, divine shield, etc.
Mage is laying back, not doing anything.
[Party][Raniah]: Mage, you're going to have to help out a bit
[Party][Dumbmage]: lolok
I kid you the fuck not, the mage tried to sheep.
The
Mage
Tried
To
Sheep
I thought he was kidding at first
[Party][Raniah]: Seriously, lol, throw down the ice-rain-thing (or whatever you fruity casters do)
[Party][Raniah]: lolidk
He tried to sheep again.
I hope you all do what I do to these types of people in the future, and kick them and their shit out of the party and go through it 4-man (it's easy enough).
Now, on to my daily "Fuck" list, which I hope becomes a signature for me.
The party
Protection Paladin (Group Leader, Tank)
Holy Priest (Healer)
Feral Druid (DPS, back up healer)
Subtlety Rogue (DPS)
And... a Mage (Worst ever)
I'm sure you, the reader, by now know ALL ABOUT Uldaman. Yeah, it's narrow, and clusterfuck full of mobs. Be, being a tankadin, is AoEing the shit out of everything while my guys are killing the skull-marked mob.
I lay down a consecrate, swing at mob, another consecrate, divine shield, etc.
Mage is laying back, not doing anything.
[Party][Raniah]: Mage, you're going to have to help out a bit
[Party][Dumbmage]: lolok
I kid you the fuck not, the mage tried to sheep.
The
Mage
Tried
To
Sheep
I thought he was kidding at first
[Party][Raniah]: Seriously, lol, throw down the ice-rain-thing (or whatever you fruity casters do)
[Party][Raniah]: lolidk
He tried to sheep again.
I hope you all do what I do to these types of people in the future, and kick them and their shit out of the party and go through it 4-man (it's easy enough).
Now, on to my daily "Fuck" list, which I hope becomes a signature for me.
FUCK these instances.
1. Fuck Ragefire Chasm. The mobs in this instance are much too strong to be giving 24 exp and dropping linen cloths and 12c. It's just not worth it to be running through this instance unless you have quests, which give fucktons of exp for that level, but doesn't offer much else.
2. Fuck the entire Scarlet Monestary. Graveyard? No problem. Library? Great! Armory? Piece of cake? Cathedral? WHAT THE FUCK HAVE I GOTTEN MYSELF INTO?
3. Fuck Gnomeregan. Seriously, no one runs it at all. Also, I've never NOT turned off my speakersand wanted to tear them out during my time there.
4. Fuck Blackfathom Deeps. Seriously, I forgot what it looks like.
5. Finally. FUCK WAILING CAVERNS. Fuck it's half-elite, half-beast shit right the fuck to hell. Fuck it's too-long-ness, it's no-drop-ness, it's lumpy, confusing maze-ness. Fuck having to endure Barrens Chat while waiting for your party-ness, fuck every fucking thing about it. I'm glad I only ran it once.
Peace and Love
Raniah
1. Fuck Ragefire Chasm. The mobs in this instance are much too strong to be giving 24 exp and dropping linen cloths and 12c. It's just not worth it to be running through this instance unless you have quests, which give fucktons of exp for that level, but doesn't offer much else.
2. Fuck the entire Scarlet Monestary. Graveyard? No problem. Library? Great! Armory? Piece of cake? Cathedral? WHAT THE FUCK HAVE I GOTTEN MYSELF INTO?
3. Fuck Gnomeregan. Seriously, no one runs it at all. Also, I've never NOT turned off my speakers
4. Fuck Blackfathom Deeps. Seriously, I forgot what it looks like.
5. Finally. FUCK WAILING CAVERNS. Fuck it's half-elite, half-beast shit right the fuck to hell. Fuck it's too-long-ness, it's no-drop-ness, it's lumpy, confusing maze-ness. Fuck having to endure Barrens Chat while waiting for your party-ness, fuck every fucking thing about it. I'm glad I only ran it once.
Peace and Love
Raniah
Tank, healing, and why the hell can't we farm!?
My main is a paladin. At one point, Blizzard called them a defensive hybrid and they really are. Ret paladins are VIABLE. The problem is, the viability is leveling and past Kara raiding. PvP they’re even doing alright. But in Heroics, and 5-mans with under-geared people (you know, the type that still needs to run regular 5 mans), and Kara, they do not shine. Yes, they CAN have GREAT DPS, but they’re not hybrids in the way that elemental shamans, shadow priests, or even feral druids are. They DPS, and that’s really it. An occasional heal is a major hit to their DPS. Elemental shamans are similar, but its no were near as much of a problem. Shadow priests are set up great, and feral can switch between DPS and tanking with the click of a button (ok ok, they won’t tank so great in kitty gear, but they still can do a half-way decent job.)
Now, before this gets anymore into how I think paladins should be actual hybrids, and ret needs more viability, the point. I’ve played both a tank and a healer in one class. Done a few instances as a tank at 70 (but I don’t like getting healed by someone else, they always seem to do something that I, as a healer, can’t stand) and done Netherwing dailies as a tank. It sucks to do those dailies. Really, really, really badly. And as a healer, it’s actually EASIER, due to Blizzard’s genius idea to have part of +heal become +spell damage. (It’s like a third, right?) I just stand there, lay a consecrate, heal myself, rinse and repeat. I can take 5-7 mobs this way. I’m also in some epics, have around 666 +spell, and my consecrate ticks are crazy.
That way of farming is almost the exact thing as prot, except I don’t use SoL to heal myself, I use my own heals. I do take more damage though, and it still takes forever.
But whenever I’m down in those damned Netherwing mines, I remember how BAD it was to be there as a tank, and I seriously think they need to fix that.
Tanks have the worst place in this game. Sure, healers have a tough time farming, but with the recent change, it’s not quite as bad as it COULD be. But they also have much less for repair bills, and just about as much (if not more) costs for consumables. And they CAN farm, but they’re really just killing the mobs with their health bar. Ok, ok, you can switch into DPS gear (unless you’re a paladin, then you’re just doubly screwed) but it still is nothing like being a DPS class. Plus, to get decent DPS gear you have to either a) get lucky or not have anyone take it b) farm honor in PvP and just pick up season 1 stuff or c) make it yourself (and some of those cost a lot, plus leveling up a profession can be costly).
It’s just not a good system.
How can it be fixed? Not easily. I’m not sure you could do just a basic thing like healing => spell damage. Especially with druids as a consideration. The reason why druids would cause a problem has to do with what stat would you make the conversion with? Well, if you used Stam => attack power, kitties would have all tank gear, and no need to change out gear to switch roles. Or armor => attack power. And while *I* wouldn’t mind this (and I can’t get a druid out of Mulgore XP) I could hear the QQ’s now.
Now, before someone jumps on me and says that healers have it horrible for farming, they spend as much as tanks and its only a little better, well, I know, I’m a healer, and I wear plate. Think of my repair bills you squishy little lucky priests ;) But they already had their “fix” and I really do think it might be the cause of cases like Area 52, where the server is good (for the most part) on healers, but can’t find a tank around.
And DPS classes, if you come in here and you comment that farming sucks for you also. Well. Let me just put it this way. You’re wrong. YOU may not enjoy it, but I can guarantee you, someone in your class loves it, and they wouldn’t want to roll another class just for farming.
It’s not exactly a very bright and shiny future. Maybe WotLK will bring something innovative from the minds of the developers and the problem will get fixed.
For now, it just means I need to level up a TRUE DPS class, so that I can’t get sidetracked into something like tanking ;)
As a side note, I suck at grammar and at spelling.
Now, before this gets anymore into how I think paladins should be actual hybrids, and ret needs more viability, the point. I’ve played both a tank and a healer in one class. Done a few instances as a tank at 70 (but I don’t like getting healed by someone else, they always seem to do something that I, as a healer, can’t stand) and done Netherwing dailies as a tank. It sucks to do those dailies. Really, really, really badly. And as a healer, it’s actually EASIER, due to Blizzard’s genius idea to have part of +heal become +spell damage. (It’s like a third, right?) I just stand there, lay a consecrate, heal myself, rinse and repeat. I can take 5-7 mobs this way. I’m also in some epics, have around 666 +spell, and my consecrate ticks are crazy.
That way of farming is almost the exact thing as prot, except I don’t use SoL to heal myself, I use my own heals. I do take more damage though, and it still takes forever.
But whenever I’m down in those damned Netherwing mines, I remember how BAD it was to be there as a tank, and I seriously think they need to fix that.
Tanks have the worst place in this game. Sure, healers have a tough time farming, but with the recent change, it’s not quite as bad as it COULD be. But they also have much less for repair bills, and just about as much (if not more) costs for consumables. And they CAN farm, but they’re really just killing the mobs with their health bar. Ok, ok, you can switch into DPS gear (unless you’re a paladin, then you’re just doubly screwed) but it still is nothing like being a DPS class. Plus, to get decent DPS gear you have to either a) get lucky or not have anyone take it b) farm honor in PvP and just pick up season 1 stuff or c) make it yourself (and some of those cost a lot, plus leveling up a profession can be costly).
It’s just not a good system.
How can it be fixed? Not easily. I’m not sure you could do just a basic thing like healing => spell damage. Especially with druids as a consideration. The reason why druids would cause a problem has to do with what stat would you make the conversion with? Well, if you used Stam => attack power, kitties would have all tank gear, and no need to change out gear to switch roles. Or armor => attack power. And while *I* wouldn’t mind this (and I can’t get a druid out of Mulgore XP) I could hear the QQ’s now.
Now, before someone jumps on me and says that healers have it horrible for farming, they spend as much as tanks and its only a little better, well, I know, I’m a healer, and I wear plate. Think of my repair bills you squishy little lucky priests ;) But they already had their “fix” and I really do think it might be the cause of cases like Area 52, where the server is good (for the most part) on healers, but can’t find a tank around.
And DPS classes, if you come in here and you comment that farming sucks for you also. Well. Let me just put it this way. You’re wrong. YOU may not enjoy it, but I can guarantee you, someone in your class loves it, and they wouldn’t want to roll another class just for farming.
It’s not exactly a very bright and shiny future. Maybe WotLK will bring something innovative from the minds of the developers and the problem will get fixed.
For now, it just means I need to level up a TRUE DPS class, so that I can’t get sidetracked into something like tanking ;)
As a side note, I suck at grammar and at spelling.
"Kira's gonna FLIP, yo!"
Yo yo yo, Raniah here, spicing up this BORING blog.
I keed.
Scroll down a bit, check out the first entry.
"Yadda yadda yadda, two horrible friends that I play with and the other pedophile that I say hi to"
Well, I'm one of the two good friends, and I hope I can entertain you somewhat while giving you some insight into MY life as a Retribution Paladin on WoW.
A bit of an introduction:
Right now, I have a lv 57 Blood Elf Ret Pally on Area 52 (OUTLAND IN ONE MORE LEVEL FTW) and about 17 alts (none of which got over lv 10, except for my priest, which is at a whopping lv 14!)
Of course there are more authors, and you (the reader) needs to keep in mind that not all authors particularly like each other, so I might hate on certain hunters (because I can't beat A SINGLE FUCKING ONE IN A DUEL or PvP!!) but this is beside the point.
I HATE PvP. I suck at it. Really hard. I suck so hard, a lv 40 holy priest beat me the other day. You think I'm fuckin' around? Talk to Basuti, he was there. I hate battlegrounds, I hate arenas, I hate being flagged, I hate the ALLIANCE - gosh, yo!
That's about it for me. If you want to catch me, for the moment, I'm hanging out near the Western Plaguelands to finish up some quests there, and when I level, I'll be at Hellfire Peninsula.
Peace and Love.
Raniah
I keed.
Scroll down a bit, check out the first entry.
"Yadda yadda yadda, two horrible friends that I play with and the other pedophile that I say hi to"
Well, I'm one of the two good friends, and I hope I can entertain you somewhat while giving you some insight into MY life as a Retribution Paladin on WoW.
A bit of an introduction:
Right now, I have a lv 57 Blood Elf Ret Pally on Area 52 (OUTLAND IN ONE MORE LEVEL FTW) and about 17 alts (none of which got over lv 10, except for my priest, which is at a whopping lv 14!)
Of course there are more authors, and you (the reader) needs to keep in mind that not all authors particularly like each other, so I might hate on certain hunters (because I can't beat A SINGLE FUCKING ONE IN A DUEL or PvP!!) but this is beside the point.
I HATE PvP. I suck at it. Really hard. I suck so hard, a lv 40 holy priest beat me the other day. You think I'm fuckin' around? Talk to Basuti, he was there. I hate battlegrounds, I hate arenas, I hate being flagged, I hate the ALLIANCE - gosh, yo!
That's about it for me. If you want to catch me, for the moment, I'm hanging out near the Western Plaguelands to finish up some quests there, and when I level, I'll be at Hellfire Peninsula.
Peace and Love.
Raniah
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Technology FTW!
I'm a tech aide at my school, and I fix technology stuff. Which means I have access to computers. Slow days = blog days, and after reading quite a few articles across 4-5 blogs, I've decided I really need to get a hobby.
And so, I go and blog that I need to get a hobby, which is all inspired by being addicted to blogs. Isn't life wonderful :)
Anyways, I actually have WoW musings for today. Want to write this down somewhere to straighten my own thoughts, so all (2) of you get to deal with my thinking. Or read something else. Or go play WoW. Whatever works.
My level 61 warrior is Arms. He started as fury at 10, and respecced to arms for the first time at 30 when I got my whirlwind hammer. I had fun with that for 9 levels, but I had
the SM and RFD swords in my bank, my hammer was getting old, and the only
decent replacement for it was in Ulda.
I hate Ulda.
So I went back fury, and stayed that way until level 59. At 59, I went BACK to arms because I wanted to PvP and get the AV wolf. I had a nice sword sitting in my bags (AH ftw), another GREAT one coming (what I currently use), and I PvP'd it up for a few games, got my 2h sword skill up while doing it, got my lifetime kills over 1337, got revered with the frostwolf clan, and just had fun.
I had gotten all the way to 59 as a DPS class. I tried to tank maybe twice before. The instance runs I did were mostly runs by myself using my girlfriend's hunter and my warrior on autofollow. I hate PUGs, why would I deal with one unless I had to?
But then I hit outlands. I had virtually no experience as a warrior tank (did it on my paladin, but thats a whole different ball game). All I knew was I was supposed to spam Sunder, shield bash(or whatever its called. The spell interupt with your shield.) occasionally, thunder clap if there were lots of mobs, and taunt if something was hitting on someone squishier than me. And I could no longer run myself through, cause I'm pretty sure it'd start to get tough on one 70 to run someone through that.
So I tanked, but I did not tank. I actually ended up being a decent tank, and I enjoyed my first run. A lot. It was even a PUG =O. Plus I learned about this weird skill I have "shield block" or something ;) And disarm. And how shield bash is a good way to get a bit extra aggro after a taunt. I learned plenty good things, and I got motivated to try this tanking thing some more.
So I did it again last night. Now, maybe I got my hopes up from the first group. It was a very good PUG. But last night. Oh. my. goshles. I HATED THE GROUP. The rogue pissed me off, and the mage was worse. The mage was so bad I tried to kill him. Tried and tried and tried. The warlock never talked, but was doing decent damage, no complaints really.
The Priest.
The Priest was amazing. And maybe if she wasn't, I'd have a different post for today. But she was, and she made me decide to change Gisli's plans. Or maybe just alter. Or SOMETHING.
The thing is, I had fun with the bad group. I got a LOT of enjoyment out of trying to kill the mage(and failing! >:(). I had fun spamming sunder armor, shield bash,
watching as the group would have wiped if I hadn't gotten that TClap
off in the right place at the right time. (we managed to pull a bit too many a few times, and the mage would NEVER resheep. even when asked)
So even with a bad group, I had amazing fun. Tanking.
I don't like tanking THAT much on my paladin. Its fun, for something
to do SOMETIMES. But I definately don't prefer it over healing.
But oh how much fun I had tanking on my warrior. He's SUPPOSED to be my PvP/farming toon, but I think I'm going to have to push my rogue and hunter up faster. Especially cause that means I'll have two class/spec combinations that SUCK at farming/making money.
Maybe that should be my next post....
Anyways, I know I'm getting my epic flyer asap on my warrior. I've flown on my regular one with crusader on since getting my paladin his flyer, but god its slow, frustratingly so. So maybe I'll do some farming and pvping till I have someone to replace him. But my warrior is going to help alleviate my servers tanking problem, that I can already tell.
And so, I go and blog that I need to get a hobby, which is all inspired by being addicted to blogs. Isn't life wonderful :)
Anyways, I actually have WoW musings for today. Want to write this down somewhere to straighten my own thoughts, so all (2) of you get to deal with my thinking. Or read something else. Or go play WoW. Whatever works.
My level 61 warrior is Arms. He started as fury at 10, and respecced to arms for the first time at 30 when I got my whirlwind hammer. I had fun with that for 9 levels, but I had
the SM and RFD swords in my bank, my hammer was getting old, and the only
decent replacement for it was in Ulda.
I hate Ulda.
So I went back fury, and stayed that way until level 59. At 59, I went BACK to arms because I wanted to PvP and get the AV wolf. I had a nice sword sitting in my bags (AH ftw), another GREAT one coming (what I currently use), and I PvP'd it up for a few games, got my 2h sword skill up while doing it, got my lifetime kills over 1337, got revered with the frostwolf clan, and just had fun.
I had gotten all the way to 59 as a DPS class. I tried to tank maybe twice before. The instance runs I did were mostly runs by myself using my girlfriend's hunter and my warrior on autofollow. I hate PUGs, why would I deal with one unless I had to?
But then I hit outlands. I had virtually no experience as a warrior tank (did it on my paladin, but thats a whole different ball game). All I knew was I was supposed to spam Sunder, shield bash(or whatever its called. The spell interupt with your shield.) occasionally, thunder clap if there were lots of mobs, and taunt if something was hitting on someone squishier than me. And I could no longer run myself through, cause I'm pretty sure it'd start to get tough on one 70 to run someone through that.
So I tanked, but I did not tank. I actually ended up being a decent tank, and I enjoyed my first run. A lot. It was even a PUG =O. Plus I learned about this weird skill I have "shield block" or something ;) And disarm. And how shield bash is a good way to get a bit extra aggro after a taunt. I learned plenty good things, and I got motivated to try this tanking thing some more.
So I did it again last night. Now, maybe I got my hopes up from the first group. It was a very good PUG. But last night. Oh. my. goshles. I HATED THE GROUP. The rogue pissed me off, and the mage was worse. The mage was so bad I tried to kill him. Tried and tried and tried. The warlock never talked, but was doing decent damage, no complaints really.
The Priest.
The Priest was amazing. And maybe if she wasn't, I'd have a different post for today. But she was, and she made me decide to change Gisli's plans. Or maybe just alter. Or SOMETHING.
The thing is, I had fun with the bad group. I got a LOT of enjoyment out of trying to kill the mage(and failing! >:(). I had fun spamming sunder armor, shield bash,
watching as the group would have wiped if I hadn't gotten that TClap
off in the right place at the right time. (we managed to pull a bit too many a few times, and the mage would NEVER resheep. even when asked)
So even with a bad group, I had amazing fun. Tanking.
I don't like tanking THAT much on my paladin. Its fun, for something
to do SOMETIMES. But I definately don't prefer it over healing.
But oh how much fun I had tanking on my warrior. He's SUPPOSED to be my PvP/farming toon, but I think I'm going to have to push my rogue and hunter up faster. Especially cause that means I'll have two class/spec combinations that SUCK at farming/making money.
Maybe that should be my next post....
Anyways, I know I'm getting my epic flyer asap on my warrior. I've flown on my regular one with crusader on since getting my paladin his flyer, but god its slow, frustratingly so. So maybe I'll do some farming and pvping till I have someone to replace him. But my warrior is going to help alleviate my servers tanking problem, that I can already tell.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Two posts! Right away!
I hope this isn't a trend! I need to nip this double posting in the butt!
I have a reason, I swear!
While writing my first post, I was talking to my girlfriend. And she....she go....I don't even know...on me. And I kept it running. Names are changed to protect the innocent (and me.)
[18:30] Girlfriend: whatcha doing little mister?
[18:30] Uzinvi: bloggin
[18:31]
[18:31] Girlfriend: im gonna go for a blog and while im there im gonna pick up some bloggage want any?
[18:32] Uzinvi: I'd like some bloggersauce instead
[18:33] Girlfriend: i can get some with extra blogness
[18:33] Girlfriend: i like it cooked a little underblogged though
[18:33] Uzinvi: no no, just plain bloggersauce, the extra blogness gives me gas
[18:33] Girlfriend: im gonna get us some blogjuice too ^_^
[18:34] Uzinvi: appleblog or orblogage?
[18:35] Girlfriend: pineblogapple :D
[18:35] Uzinvi: ok, but get some cranblog too
Lets just hope my next post has more WoW related goodness.
I have a reason, I swear!
While writing my first post, I was talking to my girlfriend. And she....she go....I don't even know...on me. And I kept it running. Names are changed to protect the innocent (and me.)
[18:30] Girlfriend: whatcha doing little mister?
[18:30] Uzinvi: bloggin
[18:31]
[18:31] Girlfriend: im gonna go for a blog and while im there im gonna pick up some bloggage want any?
[18:32] Uzinvi: I'd like some bloggersauce instead
[18:33] Girlfriend: i can get some with extra blogness
[18:33] Girlfriend: i like it cooked a little underblogged though
[18:33] Uzinvi: no no, just plain bloggersauce, the extra blogness gives me gas
[18:33] Girlfriend: im gonna get us some blogjuice too ^_^
[18:34] Uzinvi: appleblog or orblogage?
[18:35] Girlfriend: pineblogapple :D
[18:35] Uzinvi: ok, but get some cranblog too
Lets just hope my next post has more WoW related goodness.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Because Unoriginality is King.
Seriously, that's what this blog will be. Unoriginality will be the highlight of this blog, from the name (K, if you didn't get it, its a spoof off of WoWhead ;)) to how I started it simply due to the inspiration of two great bloggers (Big Red Kitty and Big Bear Butt. They are win.)
The good news is, I may get better, and I may even get original. At some point. After some time.
A slight introduction, I play a horde paladin, have rampant alt a hol ism (yes, all of those are links. And those are only the 4 alts I play right now. I have a retired 70 hunter (ally), 38 mage(ally), 30 something rogue(ally), 43 priest(first horde over 20)....the list goes on a bit), have a MAJOR PvE bent, but I don't do much more than (fail at) PvP (real life stuff ;)) and remake 5000g (and spend it, and remake it, and spend it....I really need to pay her back @_@)
I play with my girlfriend, two real good real life friends (sometimes...somewhat....) and another real good real life friend who I don't so much play with, but occasionally say hi to.
We'd have a real good 5 man if we all got along, and the two slackas got up their toons to 70. Oh, and if Gam would ever run with us! >:(
But enough about me, what about you.....
Oh wait, I'm the one with the blog. Uh, have a good day!
/end introduction
The good news is, I may get better, and I may even get original. At some point. After some time.
A slight introduction, I play a horde paladin, have rampant alt a hol ism (yes, all of those are links. And those are only the 4 alts I play right now. I have a retired 70 hunter (ally), 38 mage(ally), 30 something rogue(ally), 43 priest(first horde over 20)....the list goes on a bit), have a MAJOR PvE bent, but I don't do much more than (fail at) PvP (real life stuff ;)) and remake 5000g (and spend it, and remake it, and spend it....I really need to pay her back @_@)
I play with my girlfriend, two real good real life friends (sometimes...somewhat....) and another real good real life friend who I don't so much play with, but occasionally say hi to.
We'd have a real good 5 man if we all got along, and the two slackas got up their toons to 70. Oh, and if Gam would ever run with us! >:(
But enough about me, what about you.....
Oh wait, I'm the one with the blog. Uh, have a good day!
/end introduction
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