So upon reading (from some prompting from Kelsey) a post on Latus's blog about Blizzard's planned faction-change service, I went over to the EU forums to look for a similar post. I found it pretty quickly, and despite knowing better took a look at a couple of the responses. It only took me a few posts to find this gem.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Blizzard, you've forgotten the RPG element!
The biggest part of the RPG is roleplaying a character! Slowly, step by step, you are making it possible to completely rewrite the genetics, history and attitude of your character after its creation.
THIS IS RETARDED AND STUPID IN AN RPG ENVIRONMENT. We're supposed to grow our characters and become attached to their strengths as well as their flaws rather than just changing completely whenever we feel we have a flaw.
Blizzard... please revoke this feature immediately. It kills the sense of achievement that the game has fed on for countless of years!
I may sound like a drama queen but...
THIS FEATURE KILLS WOW."
I really have no idea how to go about addressing this post because I can't see at all where they're coming from. Normally, even when I completely disagree with somebody, I can understand the thought process behind it. This just seems to be completely illogical.
Maybe I'll take a stab at it tomorrow, it's just leaving me confused right now though.
Monday 29 June 2009
Monday 22 June 2009
The Nightfall
Only took four hours and 260 gold worth of wiping, but it was totally worth it. We used a melee heavy group (3 deathknights, 1 warrior, 1 paladin, 1 druid, 1 rogue and 1 hunter) for the zerg tactic - nuking Sartharion down before the second drake joins the fight and makes him immune to attacks.
Tuesday 16 June 2009
General Vezhax
See what I did there? Yeah, I'm cool.
There are about a million words I would use to describe this fight and none of them are what you might call positive. It may have something to do with the fact that Protection Paladins are basically given the finger in this entire encounter.
And, if I'm perfectly honest, I was expecting this to happen sooner. I've heard that pretty much every other tank class would be better suited than Paladins for almost every boss encounter, and was expecting to come across such a situation before the second to last boss of the raid. Yet I have succeeded on all of the bosses thus far, and will likely succeed again.
Being the only tank class that uses mana we're the only ones that are affected by the lack of mana regeneration. I don't gain enough back from Spiritual Attunement (my spec only has a single point in the talent) to cover continual full rotations, so I'm left with gaps where I have wasted GCDs. Add to that the lack of Paladin cooldowns making the encounter exponentially harder due to the absolute necessity for kiting (which, if you fuck it up, means a wipe).
I'm considering switching my Retribution offspec to a second Protection spec just to pick up 5 points in Divinity for the additional healing and the extra point in Spiritual Attunement for additional mana regeneration. Just for one boss. Fuck you Blizzard.
But I'm a pro. I work around my classes inherent disadvantages for the encounter as best I can. The major problem right now is the lack of mana efficient healing - we simply haven't been able to find a way to keep our healers from going out of mana well before the end of the fight. Not that that's anybody's fault, but it's something we're going to have to think about and work on if/when we reach the General this week.
There are about a million words I would use to describe this fight and none of them are what you might call positive. It may have something to do with the fact that Protection Paladins are basically given the finger in this entire encounter.
And, if I'm perfectly honest, I was expecting this to happen sooner. I've heard that pretty much every other tank class would be better suited than Paladins for almost every boss encounter, and was expecting to come across such a situation before the second to last boss of the raid. Yet I have succeeded on all of the bosses thus far, and will likely succeed again.
Being the only tank class that uses mana we're the only ones that are affected by the lack of mana regeneration. I don't gain enough back from Spiritual Attunement (my spec only has a single point in the talent) to cover continual full rotations, so I'm left with gaps where I have wasted GCDs. Add to that the lack of Paladin cooldowns making the encounter exponentially harder due to the absolute necessity for kiting (which, if you fuck it up, means a wipe).
I'm considering switching my Retribution offspec to a second Protection spec just to pick up 5 points in Divinity for the additional healing and the extra point in Spiritual Attunement for additional mana regeneration. Just for one boss. Fuck you Blizzard.
But I'm a pro. I work around my classes inherent disadvantages for the encounter as best I can. The major problem right now is the lack of mana efficient healing - we simply haven't been able to find a way to keep our healers from going out of mana well before the end of the fight. Not that that's anybody's fault, but it's something we're going to have to think about and work on if/when we reach the General this week.
Saturday 13 June 2009
The Tank-DPS Relationship
The last post didn't really cover what I wanted to write about. It does, however, serve as a nice basis to cover what I really wanted to.
The main basis for the post is the following quote:
The main basis for the post is the following quote:
"You have to play a tank to be good at World of Warcraft."
I don't recall who said that to me, and I don't fully agree with it. I don't think you have to have played a tank to be good at WoW, but I think you need to be capable of playing one. The last post lists some of the important points of tanking, and a lot of the good DPS (and healers, though their existance is ignored in this post) will already be doing many of those things.
The main thing as a DPS is to know how your tank does his or her job. If you're raiding regularly with somebody, you should know them pretty well anyway. Pay attention to what they're doing and you'll be fine. Attacking an add that your tank isn't targetting will likely cause you to pull aggro. You also need to know how fast your tank can build threat, which will be important after aggro resetting effects such as the lightning tendrils in the Iron Council encounter.
As an example, I'll take Mimiron phase three:
Multiple adds spawning in different locations around the room. The first add to be picked up will be the closest - it will likely get three GCDs of my time before I move on to pick up the next add. Three GCDs is enough threat to keep that add on me if it's not being attacked. Threat from heals and aoe effects shouldn't beat that before I'm attacking that enemy again.
If my DPS immediately open up on that add, one of them may pull aggro. If I have to move a lot to pick up the second add, it's going to be a while before I'm contributing any substantial amount of threat to that first add, increasing the chances that one of the DPS will pull aggro.
This is where knowing how your tank works comes in. My DPS should know that's what I'm going to do, and shouldn't fully open up on the adds until I've collected them all together.
The main thing as a tank is to know your DPS and their threat output. As a Paladin tank, I tend to pick the person who I think is going to be pulling aggro the most if I'm tanking multiple adds, and set them as focus so I can cast Righteous Defense without switching to target them. If I judged incorrectly, changing the person I have on focus takes about a second.
Learning how your group works is easier if you're regularly raiding with the same people. If you're in an ever changing 10 man raid group, it's a longer process (and requires you to learn how more people play the game). But once you've done the learning, life is easy. So go out there and do it. Ask your tank how he deals with different situations if you like. It will likely make you a better player and in turn make your group better.
The main thing as a DPS is to know how your tank does his or her job. If you're raiding regularly with somebody, you should know them pretty well anyway. Pay attention to what they're doing and you'll be fine. Attacking an add that your tank isn't targetting will likely cause you to pull aggro. You also need to know how fast your tank can build threat, which will be important after aggro resetting effects such as the lightning tendrils in the Iron Council encounter.
As an example, I'll take Mimiron phase three:
Multiple adds spawning in different locations around the room. The first add to be picked up will be the closest - it will likely get three GCDs of my time before I move on to pick up the next add. Three GCDs is enough threat to keep that add on me if it's not being attacked. Threat from heals and aoe effects shouldn't beat that before I'm attacking that enemy again.
If my DPS immediately open up on that add, one of them may pull aggro. If I have to move a lot to pick up the second add, it's going to be a while before I'm contributing any substantial amount of threat to that first add, increasing the chances that one of the DPS will pull aggro.
This is where knowing how your tank works comes in. My DPS should know that's what I'm going to do, and shouldn't fully open up on the adds until I've collected them all together.
The main thing as a tank is to know your DPS and their threat output. As a Paladin tank, I tend to pick the person who I think is going to be pulling aggro the most if I'm tanking multiple adds, and set them as focus so I can cast Righteous Defense without switching to target them. If I judged incorrectly, changing the person I have on focus takes about a second.
Learning how your group works is easier if you're regularly raiding with the same people. If you're in an ever changing 10 man raid group, it's a longer process (and requires you to learn how more people play the game). But once you've done the learning, life is easy. So go out there and do it. Ask your tank how he deals with different situations if you like. It will likely make you a better player and in turn make your group better.
Some Musings on the Art of Tanking
Introduction
Inspired by this post by Latus. I even stole the title.
There are certain aspects of WoW that are required for effective tanking. Things such as general awareness, camera positioning and movement as well as, most importantly, threat management. Those who fill the DPS and healer roles - and who are good at doing so - will have a similar interest in those aspects which are relevant to them; movement is less of an issue for both, and threat mechanics aren't a huge issue for healers.
General Awareness
General Awareness is all about being knowing what's going on at all times. Tanks tend to have more to keep track of than other members of the group. Area effects such as void zones, rockets in Mimiron phases 2 and 4, etc everybody has to watch for. Other than those, healers concentrate on who needs healing, DPS concentrate on what they need to hit, and tanks concentrate on where they are, where the boss is, whether or not the boss is about to use a high-damage special attack, when and where adds are going to spawn, what abilities you have available to pick them up and whether or not other members of the group have aggro.
It's certainly a lot to keep track of, and not everybody can do it. If you can, though, life as a tank shouldn't be too difficult.
Camera Positioning
Camera positioning is important for the majority of fights. Only being able to see a boss's crotch is fine if you don't also have to pick up adds, move to specific zones or avoid things such as landmines. If you do, you need to position your camera in a way that allows you to see as much of the area of the fight as possible - this generally means zooming as far out as possible, and possibly adopting an overhead view.
Movement
Ever heard the saying "There's more than one way to skin a cat"? Well, there's also more than one way to kite a boss, and they aren't all equally effective.
If you have to move quickly and more than a few steps, walking away backwards isn't going to work - you'll get yourself killed by the void zone or shock blast or whatever else it is. If the boss hits hard, turning your back to them for any lengthy amount of time probably isn't a good idea.
As a semi-aside, my ex-girlfriend recently started playing WoW with me. I jump quite a lot when I move. To be honest, I rarely move in a direction without also hitting my spacebar. When she said that I "prance like a girl" I replied that I'm a tank, and I therefore have a jumping habit.
Jumping is good. It allows you to move quickly in one direction, but already be facing in the opposite direction when you land. If you've ever watched somebody tank Heigan, you'll probably notice that they turn away from him, run towards the next safe zone, and jump into it while turning back towards Heigan. This is fine because Heigan hits like a wimp, try doing it while taking ~20k hits kiting a boss like Ignis and you'll probably be dead in a hurry.
So if you can't do that, what can you do? Moving sideways is your best bet - it should allow you to keep facing the boss, but also move quickly out of anything that's going to greatly reduce your lifespan.
Obviously it's up to you, as a tank, to know which method of movement is appropriate to the encounter. As a DPS or healer, there's a lot less importance on how you move, only that you do it in time.
Threat Management
Healers, you aren't welcome here. Not that I don't love you guys, it's just that this really has no relevance for you. The only time healers pull aggro is when they get too close to enemies that haven't already been pulled, or cast heals when enemies haven't been hit at all by the tank.
Threat forms the basis of the tank-DPS relationship. Tanks have to know how to put out high levels of threat (while doing everything else they have to do), and DPS have to know how to put out high levels of damage without putting out too much threat. And they both have to trust that the other not only knows how to do it, but that they are doing it.
While Omen is less of a requirement with the addition of Blizzard's built-in threat meter, it's still a highly useful addon. You can work out how much threat your individual attacks are doing (potentially useful for maintaining some damage output as opposed to not attacking at all when trying to limit threat output), as well as see how much threat you're dealing per second and how far behind the tank(s) you are.
Inspired by this post by Latus. I even stole the title.
There are certain aspects of WoW that are required for effective tanking. Things such as general awareness, camera positioning and movement as well as, most importantly, threat management. Those who fill the DPS and healer roles - and who are good at doing so - will have a similar interest in those aspects which are relevant to them; movement is less of an issue for both, and threat mechanics aren't a huge issue for healers.
General Awareness
General Awareness is all about being knowing what's going on at all times. Tanks tend to have more to keep track of than other members of the group. Area effects such as void zones, rockets in Mimiron phases 2 and 4, etc everybody has to watch for. Other than those, healers concentrate on who needs healing, DPS concentrate on what they need to hit, and tanks concentrate on where they are, where the boss is, whether or not the boss is about to use a high-damage special attack, when and where adds are going to spawn, what abilities you have available to pick them up and whether or not other members of the group have aggro.
It's certainly a lot to keep track of, and not everybody can do it. If you can, though, life as a tank shouldn't be too difficult.
Camera Positioning
Camera positioning is important for the majority of fights. Only being able to see a boss's crotch is fine if you don't also have to pick up adds, move to specific zones or avoid things such as landmines. If you do, you need to position your camera in a way that allows you to see as much of the area of the fight as possible - this generally means zooming as far out as possible, and possibly adopting an overhead view.
Movement
Ever heard the saying "There's more than one way to skin a cat"? Well, there's also more than one way to kite a boss, and they aren't all equally effective.
If you have to move quickly and more than a few steps, walking away backwards isn't going to work - you'll get yourself killed by the void zone or shock blast or whatever else it is. If the boss hits hard, turning your back to them for any lengthy amount of time probably isn't a good idea.
As a semi-aside, my ex-girlfriend recently started playing WoW with me. I jump quite a lot when I move. To be honest, I rarely move in a direction without also hitting my spacebar. When she said that I "prance like a girl" I replied that I'm a tank, and I therefore have a jumping habit.
Jumping is good. It allows you to move quickly in one direction, but already be facing in the opposite direction when you land. If you've ever watched somebody tank Heigan, you'll probably notice that they turn away from him, run towards the next safe zone, and jump into it while turning back towards Heigan. This is fine because Heigan hits like a wimp, try doing it while taking ~20k hits kiting a boss like Ignis and you'll probably be dead in a hurry.
So if you can't do that, what can you do? Moving sideways is your best bet - it should allow you to keep facing the boss, but also move quickly out of anything that's going to greatly reduce your lifespan.
Obviously it's up to you, as a tank, to know which method of movement is appropriate to the encounter. As a DPS or healer, there's a lot less importance on how you move, only that you do it in time.
Threat Management
Healers, you aren't welcome here. Not that I don't love you guys, it's just that this really has no relevance for you. The only time healers pull aggro is when they get too close to enemies that haven't already been pulled, or cast heals when enemies haven't been hit at all by the tank.
Threat forms the basis of the tank-DPS relationship. Tanks have to know how to put out high levels of threat (while doing everything else they have to do), and DPS have to know how to put out high levels of damage without putting out too much threat. And they both have to trust that the other not only knows how to do it, but that they are doing it.
While Omen is less of a requirement with the addition of Blizzard's built-in threat meter, it's still a highly useful addon. You can work out how much threat your individual attacks are doing (potentially useful for maintaining some damage output as opposed to not attacking at all when trying to limit threat output), as well as see how much threat you're dealing per second and how far behind the tank(s) you are.
Mimiron: 42 Rebirth: 1
As the title suggests, we finally downed Mimiron. After 42 wipes, but who's counting? Took us about six and a half hours across three nights, but we've finally killed him. Vent and the guild channel exploded when we finally got him, as you'd expect.
Our third try of the evening last night saw us reach phase 4 for the first time, but fail because of a lack of co-ordination - we only had two ranged DPS in the group, one of which was focusing on the body rather than the head. We would only reach phase 4 twice (the second time coming several wipes after the first), and down him the second time it happened. The kill was by no means perfect - we lost the only mage in the group during the second phase (druid combat rezzed while waiting for phase three to start) and we only had seven people up when he went down - but a kill is a kill. Hopefully improvements will be made next week.
We also downed the Assembly of Iron after Mimiron. My first time killing them, bringing my personal Ulduar progress up to 10/14.
We'll be trying General Vezax in tonight's raid after (hopefully quickly) downing Hodir, Thorim and Freya. I'm not sure if we'll get to see Yogg-Saron this week, but it is a possibility - we have three days of raiding Ulduar 10 left before the reset.
Our third try of the evening last night saw us reach phase 4 for the first time, but fail because of a lack of co-ordination - we only had two ranged DPS in the group, one of which was focusing on the body rather than the head. We would only reach phase 4 twice (the second time coming several wipes after the first), and down him the second time it happened. The kill was by no means perfect - we lost the only mage in the group during the second phase (druid combat rezzed while waiting for phase three to start) and we only had seven people up when he went down - but a kill is a kill. Hopefully improvements will be made next week.
We also downed the Assembly of Iron after Mimiron. My first time killing them, bringing my personal Ulduar progress up to 10/14.
We'll be trying General Vezax in tonight's raid after (hopefully quickly) downing Hodir, Thorim and Freya. I'm not sure if we'll get to see Yogg-Saron this week, but it is a possibility - we have three days of raiding Ulduar 10 left before the reset.
Monday 8 June 2009
Ulduar Update
So I haven't really written much about Ulduar for a while now. That's because I haven't really seen any new content; 10 man progression is still on 10/14 (we've yet to even attempt Mimiron) and 25 man progression is now at 3/14 (Flame Leviathan, Razorscale and XT-002).
I've yet to down Ignis on either 10 or 25 man. Ignis should be downed easily, but it just hasn't happened. 10 man failures for the few attempts we've had on him seem to just be a lack of focus - we start on him late, so people are tired. 25 man failures are simply a lack of healing, at some point in the fight I'd simply not receive any healing for two hits in a row - I was sitting at just under 41k health unbuffed, so two ~20k hits (plus possibly a tick while moving out of scorch) without healing means I'm dead.
We've also been losing evenings. Saturday night's raid was cancelled due to a lack of available people - a large number of those signed for the raid simply didn't show up and the other tank had his account hacked. No big deal, it happens. We downed seven bosses in just over three hours on Friday night and haven't been back since. I was confident that this week we'd at least get to see Mimiron even if we didn't down him, now I'm not sure.
I've yet to down Ignis on either 10 or 25 man. Ignis should be downed easily, but it just hasn't happened. 10 man failures for the few attempts we've had on him seem to just be a lack of focus - we start on him late, so people are tired. 25 man failures are simply a lack of healing, at some point in the fight I'd simply not receive any healing for two hits in a row - I was sitting at just under 41k health unbuffed, so two ~20k hits (plus possibly a tick while moving out of scorch) without healing means I'm dead.
We've also been losing evenings. Saturday night's raid was cancelled due to a lack of available people - a large number of those signed for the raid simply didn't show up and the other tank had his account hacked. No big deal, it happens. We downed seven bosses in just over three hours on Friday night and haven't been back since. I was confident that this week we'd at least get to see Mimiron even if we didn't down him, now I'm not sure.
Friday 5 June 2009
Dual Specialization for the Protection Paladin
With the introduction of dual specialization, I've been giving a lot of thought to which is the best secondary spec for me. I initially collected a set of Retribution gear from heroics, with a few emblem of heroism and crafted pieces thrown in. When dual specialization went in, I spent my 1000 gold and opted for Protection and Retribution.
I have also (rather slowly) been collecting a set of Holy gear. I've even passed on a few items of Retribution gear stating that I'm planning on switching my offspec to Holy at some later date. Then I thought that, actually, having Holy as my offspec is going to be less useful than Retribution.
The main advantage of Retribution as a secondary spec is being able to switch to a DPS role for fights that only require a single tank, such as Loatheb and Sapphiron in Naxxramas or Hodir in Ulduar. Obviously this guarantees wipes if the main (and only) tank for that fight dies, but that's the price for the additional person DPSing in the raid. And, to date, fights such as this are the only time that I've really used Retribution.
Holy would be considerably more useful if I weren't going to be reliably called on to tank for guild raids. If this were the case, being able to fill a healer spot in a raid would be beneficial. But since I'm almost always going to be tanking, and bosses that only require a single tank don't tend to require extra healers, I have a feeling Holy as an offspec would go entirely unused.
I have also (rather slowly) been collecting a set of Holy gear. I've even passed on a few items of Retribution gear stating that I'm planning on switching my offspec to Holy at some later date. Then I thought that, actually, having Holy as my offspec is going to be less useful than Retribution.
The main advantage of Retribution as a secondary spec is being able to switch to a DPS role for fights that only require a single tank, such as Loatheb and Sapphiron in Naxxramas or Hodir in Ulduar. Obviously this guarantees wipes if the main (and only) tank for that fight dies, but that's the price for the additional person DPSing in the raid. And, to date, fights such as this are the only time that I've really used Retribution.
Holy would be considerably more useful if I weren't going to be reliably called on to tank for guild raids. If this were the case, being able to fill a healer spot in a raid would be beneficial. But since I'm almost always going to be tanking, and bosses that only require a single tank don't tend to require extra healers, I have a feeling Holy as an offspec would go entirely unused.
Wednesday 3 June 2009
When raiding goes bad
So I learnt the hard way that raiding whilst exhausted is not a good idea. While finishing off as much of Ulduar as possible before the reset, I discovered just how much of a bitch the arena in the Thorim encounter is when you've had two hours sleep and can't focus.
We did, eventually, get him down but the majority of the attempts were one silly fuck up after another - mainly healers getting one-shotted by champions because I was too slow on picking them up. Tanking is fun when it goes well (or even mediocre) but knowing that wipe after wipe is entirely your fault definitely makes you feel like a complete idiot.
We went on to down Razorscale, and called it for the week - bringing the number of bosses I've personally downed in Ulduar to 8. Less than the 10 I was hoping for, but we lost a day because of healers being unavailable and had trouble finding replacements when people had to leave early because we'd run two groups earlier in the week. Not to mention wasting a couple of hours on Thorim because of my lack of sleep.
We did, eventually, get him down but the majority of the attempts were one silly fuck up after another - mainly healers getting one-shotted by champions because I was too slow on picking them up. Tanking is fun when it goes well (or even mediocre) but knowing that wipe after wipe is entirely your fault definitely makes you feel like a complete idiot.
We went on to down Razorscale, and called it for the week - bringing the number of bosses I've personally downed in Ulduar to 8. Less than the 10 I was hoping for, but we lost a day because of healers being unavailable and had trouble finding replacements when people had to leave early because we'd run two groups earlier in the week. Not to mention wasting a couple of hours on Thorim because of my lack of sleep.
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