Wednesday, April 30, 2008

25 Man Raid. /Boggle

YAY!

Finally Stuntyone loses his 25 man virginity... Does that sound as bad as I think it does?

Anyway the point is that I went to Gruuls Lair on my first 25 man raid yesterday, and boy was I nervous. I mean 24 other people to let down? Scary. I knew that being nervous wasn't helping me any, but I just couldn't help it. It's the same feeling I get when trying any new content for the first time, made worse by the fact that I was doing it in a completely unfamiliar set up. I remember the feeling from the first time I entered Karazhan, when seeing Moroes for the first time as a tank, and my first attempts on The Shade of Aran and Prince. Exhilaration and terror combined into one overwhelming emotion. I love that feeling, it's the feeling of personal progress.

I was third tank and thank goodness for that. I was the least geared and least experienced of the tanks there and had I been in any other position I would have had my doubts about the raid leaders sanity. As third tank here are a couple of tips I didn't find in any of the strategy guides, and it deals with the trash. I always maintain that strat guides and how-to vids are helpful, but until you've done the fights you know next to nothing about them. However this doesn't stop me from reading dozens of strat guides and watching any movie I can lay my hands on.

There are only two types of mobs in Gruuls Lair, Lair Brute's or Gronn Priest's, and all but the last of the pulls is a single or a double pull. As third tank I was informed you should be waiting in the raid for the Lair Brute's to charge a random raid member or for the Gronn Priests to fear everyone in melee range. As the raid progressed I found that the best way to do this is to position yourself close to the back of the raid group, but not right at the rear, as the Lair Brute's target seems completely random and your taunt only works when facing the mob. Positioning yourself here provides the quickest response time to taunting the mob off whomever he has just charged. If the pull consists of only Gronn Priests position yourself towards the front of the raid group, but out of their AoE fear range. This allows you to quickly pick up one of the mobs after the fear. A last tip is target the first in the kill order as they will use their ability first then target the second mob after the tank has taken it off you as the raid should kill the mobs before they can use their ability again.

Enough with the making myself look knowledgeable and out with the truth.

The Truth.

We did the pulls up to High King Mulgar with me learning my duties as third tank on the fly, but we get there without any wipes and everything is looking up. Then it's time for me to have some responsibility, uh oh.

To start with I'm on Blindeye the Seer and I manage to pick him up and tank him, but suddenly the MT is dead and Mulgar is whirlwinding through the raid killing all in his path. /wipe.

We have several other failed attempts, one caused by my pull shot missing and causing the MT to go splat as now Mulgar and Blindeye are beating on the poor person. Another was caused by the MT perfectly timing a DC with the start of a pull.

Yet another wipe was caused solely by me. I broke my personal record for killing people with a single body pull, I damn near got the lot of them. Let me tell you after I apologized to everyone on vent, I quietly took my headphones off, stood up and kicked my pc desk so hard the damn thing near broke. I was that mad with myself. I should have known by the distance everyone else was keeping that his aggro range was massive.

I mean what the hell. It was my first time in a 25 man raid and I cause a body pull wipe? Get a hold of yourself Stunty.

I even offered to pay a sum towards repairs for the raid, which was turned down, much to the relief of my wallet.

The next pull however we down Mulgar. By this stage I had been put on Kiggler and the MT had been changed due to an unreliable Internet connection. I go over and stand by the mage tank who will start the pull so that I can just taunt Kiggler and drag his sorry butt over to the raid. This however meant that I had to drag him right across the room, this may sound easy but let me tell you it's not when your being Deathcoiled what seams like every 5 seconds. Also the warlock wasn't setting the enslaved felhunter on him to reduce his casting. Eventually after being feared all over the damn place I die, I call it out on vent.

(yet again names have been omitted)

Me: I'm down

RL: S can you pick up kiggler. (more of a statement than a question)

Me: S is offline. (having DC'd again after Blindeye went down)

S comes back online and picks up Kiggler just as I accept my combat rez and we go on to down Mulgar. YAY.

Now everything is running smoothly, we trash the trash, and proceed to one shot Gruul. During this fight I just try to put out as much dps as I can while keeping Imp TC and Demo shout an Gruul at all times. I actually enjoyed the shatters which provide a nice counterpoint to the fight, and I only took a small amount of damage from it once. I even got my T4 Leggings , which I made a half hearted attempt to pass on for causing a wipe. I soon relented and won the roll.

Thus ends the story of my excursion in to the world of 25 man raiding.

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Control, Thats What It's All About.

What is the main difference between being the dps and being the tank?

I mean apart from the damage out put.

Yes, yes, and the damage taken.

Control. As the tank you get to, and are expected to, control each and every pull. Why do you think that in most parties the tank is given leader? It's so he/she can control the situation. How do you do this? It's simple, you get the big, nasty things to hit you instead of those squishy people behind you.

How do you get the big nasties to hit you instead of the squishies? Well unless you a pally It's all a numbers game, tank what you can and cc the rest (If your a pally it seems the more the merrier, but we shall ignore this anomaly for the moment). Problems appear when you try to tank more than you can handle and mobs get loose and squish healers.

Another aspect of control is threat priority, you mark the biggest threat to be cc'd or killed first. This is usually a healer, and it's safer to kill it first as cc can be broken, and they are normally squishy cloth wearers who go down fast.

What happens when things go wrong? Well then its seat of your pants tanking time, and again its a numbers thing. If mobs get loose it's your duty as the tank to pick them up, no buts no excuses. If you pick it up then the cc has a chance to incapacitate it again. If multiple mobs get loose then it's screw the cc and tank what you can, if they focus on you then the party has some chance. Thunder Clap and use shouts and Cleave with reckless abandon, if your a feral druid Swipe FTW.

Remember, if you get into this position that suddenly the first in the kill order suddenly becomes the least important to tank. Why is this you ask? It's because the kill order rules the lives of the dps, and if the one they are focused on gets loose they fight like a trapped rat and it's all the dps focused on the right target. So a mob on half health usually goes down before it can cause too much damage.

Ok so you see that tanking is all about control? Good.

The other night I however had none :(

Story Time.

I was doing heroic Magisters Terrace again, this time with a full guild group. Hurray, no PuG for Stunty!

Everything goes fine and we tear straight through the first two bosses. However after that I start to lose it, body pulling groups (getting us wiped at one point), focusing on the wrong mob, using the incorrect abilities for the situation, and generally doing just about everything I could to kill my guildies.

Bad Stunty -10 tanking brownie points per death for you.

Good guildies for putting up with Stunty +50 tanking brownie pointy for you. Hell you guys got so many brownie points that when one of the mages body pulled and wiped us I just felt relieved that it was not me. To make things worse the bosses even dropped 2 off-spec items for me, which I felt I truly did not deserve (not that I turned them down you understand, I felt guilty, not crazy).

Anyway we muddle through the last of it one shotting the bosses (seemed to have no problem with them), wiping on trash and collecting our badges.


After the run I sat down and analysed what I had done wrong, and why it was wrong. It all boiled down to lack of control and thus prompting this post, and in the last 40 hours or so since that run I have done 5 other heroics, trying to perfect my control as a tank.

The moral of this post is that next time you wipe in an instance, instead of QQing have a quick think and see if there was anything else you could have done to prevent it, since as the tank you should be in control of the situation at all times.

P.S. I will get round to the posts that I mentioned earlier ... but I just write as the mood takes me and thus the random ordering to my posts.

You Only Love Me For My Tanking.

WARNING - Whine Imminent

It's got to be done, I just can't hold it in any longer.

/Tantrum

Why wont you take me anywhere as dps? Every time I get a whisper when I'm dps it's,

"Wanna come to [Insert Instance Name Here]?"

"Yeah, sure if you have the dps spot free."

"Your dps? Oh nvm."

It hurts me that all you want me for is my tanking. Tank this, tank that, don't dps we have other people for that, do what we want not what you want. Blah blah blah.

Just for once I'd like to get a whisper saying that there was a dps spot free and you would like me to come. If I was specced prot at the time I'd drop the 50 g for a respec in an instant.

/Tantrum off

Sunday, April 27, 2008

I think It's Trying To Tell Me Somthing.

I think the game is trying to throw me hints as to which role it wants me to fill.

I love being dps, and I'm good at it. I even worked hard to accumulate decent dps gear from pvp, created and off-spec epics. It seems however that the game doesn't want me to be dps, it wants me to be protection.

How do I know this?

Well whenever I go looking for a new tanking item from heroics, it drops first try. The Sun Eater dropped on my very first heroic mech run and the Spaulders of Dementia on my first heroic Sethekk Halls. So what do you think happens when I go looking for the Commendation of Keal'thas? Thats right it drops without a complaint.

Hell even the PuG was great.

Yes, thats right I PuG'd.

A guildie mage told me he had a good group that was looking for a tank, and he was right. It was better than good it was exceptional. We completely owned that dungeon, well except for one wipe on the first boss, but we wont count that.

Shush, I know that technically he owned us then but the next attempt that boss died so fast I was still trying to tank him as he fell, and we then went on to one shot every other boss in the place.

Ok so we had a few death's, but even when I died on one pull they still managed to finish it without me. There was no whining, no blaming people for other people dieing. Just good, clean, competent fun.

I might even PuG again tomorrow.


[ Insert Ominous Thundery Noises Here ]

Thursday, April 24, 2008

They Are Comming

Don't worry I have'nt abandond this blog, it's just that I have several posts under construction at the moment and a backlog of video editing.

Just to keep you interested here are a few teasers.

A Night of Doubles : More mistakes and adventures in 2v2 arena.

Who Needs CC : A crazy run in Shattered halls with no CC. Video included.

How To PvP as Protection : Useful hints and tips on how to grind honor as a protection warrior.

And one I've been meaning to do for some time now.

It's All The Pally's Fault! : I'll leave you in suspence on this one :)

They are all comming soon so don't get dishartened.

Sunday, April 20, 2008

No Omen No Stunty

The title says it all really, but I'm going to go into more detail anyway. would have been a bit boring if that was all I wrote.

I was invited into a pug heroic Slave Pens run today, normally I don't pug but I could do with the badges and it's SP, whats the worst that could happen?

*Crash, Boom, and other ominous, thundery noises*

I just asked whats the worst that could happen didn't I? Crap!

PUG's A B**** And Then I Leave.

It started off on a bad note as the rogue didn't know that you could only run the same heroic one a day, and had to be told so several times by the rest of the party before he would believe us.

/Insta-pug Hunter

You can always rely on a hunter lurking in LFG :). We summon him and get to killing. During the first few pulls I notice that I'm having to use Intervene and Taunt a lot more than normal, especially during the early part of the pull. After about 5 pulls I get a little annoyed and watch my threat meter during the next fight.

WTF?!?!?

Only myself and the healer have Omen running. No wonder I had to Taunt so much, non of the dps can see my threat.

Normally I don't watch my threat meter that much in the first part of the instance as I spend that time getting a feel for the group I'm playing with. I watch for things like, who's likely to pull aggro, who's likely to lose their CC and need saving, and how competent the healer is. after that I start looking at the threat meter and raise my tps if I'm holding one or two of the dps back, or play more defensively to save healer mana if they are not coming close to my threat.

I normally don't get too upset if one of the dps is running without Omen, especially in a pug. I just keep a closer eye on them in case they pull aggro.

But this?!?!?

ALL
the dps running without Omen? (Ok so one had KTM, but that hasn't worked since patch 2.4 went live.)

If I wanted pain and frustration I would have spent my night juggling knives instead of playing WoW, and I suck at juggling.

Long story short, I type "only 2 people in the group have omen, I'm out.", "no omen no stunty". I leave the group, get teleported back to SC, say good night to the guild and log off.




So the moral of the story is if you want me to tank your Instances, get omen. It's not hard, I'll even give you step by step instructions if your computer illiterate.

Saturday, April 19, 2008

One I'll Fated Night!

Warning

There will be bitching in this post, also I will make comments here that I wouldn’t in game. So if your offended by this post, tough, for here I am God. Feel free to make any protests you wish in the comments section, but guess what, I can moderate those too Muhahahahahahahahaha!!!!

Did I just hear you talking back to god?

/Smite you with thunderbolts

What’s this? Type /help for list of commands? I don’t need help. I need thunderbolts. Lots of them! Now! Where’s my righteous smiting damn it!!!

Ah power, It goes straight to my head leaving sensible things like common sense and tact twiddling their thumbs in the corner.

Anyway on to the post proper.


The Prelude.

It seems that lately that I have become a raid jinx. Any raid I signed up for just didn't go ahead. Until last night (from when I'm righting this anyway). It was Tuesday and the last chance for those who had not done Karazhan this week to do so. I, of course, jumped at the chance.

When it was crunch time however we still didn’t have enough people, we had two tanks, two healers (by the way much <3 to the shammy who respecced restoration to keep me alive), and 3 dps. So we pugged. A bad idea if ever I heard one, but I wanted to raid so I kept my mouth shut. When I saw one of the people we pugged my heart sank.

This will be the only time ever I break my naming and shaming policy on this blog, but I feel so strongly prejudiced towards this person I just can’t help myself. Eliteassassin. There I’ve done it there’s no going back now, I even put it in bold so you can’t miss it. For the record, if it ever comes down to a choice of playing with him again or roasting my genitals over a slow fire, I have just one question. Can I bring marshmallows?


The Bitching - You Know You Like The Drama.

He is the hunter that gives all other hunters a bad name. His first words after joining the group were to ensure that he could get to roll on any loot he felt like. Now when joining a pug group and seeing master loot I would have done the same, the main difference would have been that I would have addressed the question in whisper to the master looter, and asked him to explain the looting system instead of making comments in raid chat the maid it seem like we would instantly play favorites and deny him loot if he didn’t kick up a fuss now.

Then as soon as we are inside, buffing up and waiting for tardy members he starts boasting about his dps and saying how he will try to curb it so as not to pull aggro off the tanks, and the one time he does he announces it to everyone like it was something to be proud of, I mean come on. How is that right in anyone’s books. Then during the Moroes fight he was complaining about complaining about people breaking his traps.

Reader: So what you say, a little boasting never hurt anyone and I would complain too if my traps were getting broken.

Me: Well yes, but I was watching the whole fight and nobody touched his traps the only breaking was due to resists. Also after he left I checked recount and he was 5th on the dps chart, but he did manage to top the list of cc breakers, and I think that says more about him than I ever could.

(I hope you don’t mind me putting words in your mouth, but what the hell, see god comment above)

Reader: Ok so he’s a bad hunter, but does running with him once give you that good an idea of what he is really like?

Me: Oh dear reader how I wish it was just one run. This pimple on the bottom of humanity was in my previous guild for some time, and had it been up to me, would have been kicked not long after he joined. As an officer in that guild I would have loved to kick him but was denied the right by my GM. Also as an officer was not aloud to put him in my ignore list. Fortunately after he hit 70 he quit the guild.

Reader: What do you think is the underlying reason you dislike him so much?

Me: Well he’s around the 16 year old mark.

Reader: That’s not much of a reason.

Me: But his maturity is somewhere in the region of the10 year old.

Reader: Oh.

Me: I won’t list the amount of times he’s driven me to distraction, as that would bore you to tears, but I think you get my point. So in conclusion to all my guildies and friends out there if there is him and me in a party or raid, either he leaves or I do.

Ok I think that’s enough bitching for one session. Any more comments from me should now be taken as constructive criticism and not a personal attack. On with the show!


The Huntsman.

I will take this time to point out that we were running with only two healers. Had to be said at some point and now is as good a time as any.

Also our OT from what I could tell had never run Karazhan as a tank before. This is judging from his gear (a mix of tanking 70 blues, season 3 arena gear and rep rewards) and his confusion over tanking arrangements and procedures. As a dps warrior in a raid you let the kill order rule your life, you literally have to pay attention to almost nothing else, also if in doubt if it’s being tanked it’s fair game. For a first time run as tank and the little info he was given at the start of each fight he did quite well. But for god sake man if your reading this get the new omen … I’m begging you.

We spend a bit of time sorting out marks, and healing assignments, then start the pulling. On the second pull we somehow get the patrol as well. The group manages to deal with it and this gives me hope for the night. We work our way through the rest of the trash and there is a bit of confusion as the OT was not sure which mark to tank when there was more than two, and had picked the shackles mark. He was soon corrected.

We get to where midnight is standing. I don’t remember if there was a wipe along the way, the reason for this will become clear soon, but I do remember there being a couple of death’s. The raid leader gives a brief overview of the fight and it’s time to rock and roll.

/wipe.

What had happened? Well the OT didn’t pick up the huntsman when he turned up. So the huntsman went on his merry was reeking untold havoc amongst the raid, starting with the healers and working his way down the pecking order.

We get back and the OT is instructed to pick up the huntsman as soon as he show himself and where he is to tank him. Ok everyone ready, all set? Ok show time.

/wipe

The OT did try to get Attumen under control, he just wasn’t quick enough, by the time Attumen is chomping the OT he’s already chowed down on two healers and one dps. Quick get back before we get respawns.

Third times a charm. The OT is assigned Midnight and I get the job of picking up Attumen and dragging his butt of to the corner. In my opinion this is the way it should have been from the beginning as Midnight doesn’t hit as hard as Attumen, and the Attumen tank is better placed to pick them up when they combine in phase 3. Anyway the huntsman show up I smack him a couple of times to get his attention then drag his butt over to the corner. Then in phase three our OT even manages to pick up the combined Attumen/Midnight before I do. He does lose control of him at one point but I think that’s due to him not having omen. By the time he’s finished eating the unfortunate hunter who pulled aggro, I’m now tanking him and do so for the rest of the fight.

I will do a little tanking guide for each of the bosses we did on that run.

Here is the Attumen/Midnight tanking guide.

Phase 1
The OT should run up to Midnight and lay into that horse like it said bad things about your momma. Tanking him on the spot he starts in is the best.

Phase 2
Mean while the MT should smack the horse once then Blood Rage back off a little and stand there with a nice stack of rage and a good view of the battle field. At 95% Attumen will appear on the right hand side of midnight (your right facing the horse) us the tab button to select him then run up and slap him with a Shield Slam, as this will cause the most threat in one hit. The MT will then drag Attumen into the predetermined corner as he has a nasty cleave attack that you really don’t want hitting the rest of the raid.

Phase 3
The raid meanwhile is beating on that horse like the OT’s momma was a well known and respected person and the didn’t like those comments one bit. When Midnight is low on health Attumen will call for him, at this point the raid should stop all dps. Any raid member continuing dps until on of the tanks has him under control will get -50 tanking brownie point. Continuing dps at this point is not an “Uh Oh” or a “Booboo”, it is a serious crime against tanking, as all aggro is reset at this point. Both tanks should try to gain control of Attumen but the MT normally will as he should be closer to the now mounted Attumen. At this point disarm should be used by anyone who can as it greatly reduces Attumens damage. Also he will charge random raid members, do not follow him as he will come right back to you like a good little raid boss.

And that ladies and gentlemen is the Attumen/Midnight fight from a tanks perspective.


Moreos

After downing the Huntsman (a boss which had taken 3 attempts and whom I had one shotted the first time I ever saw him) we start clearing up to Moroes with only one wipe caused by the OT’s mouse going haywire and leading him on an erratic dance through the ball room until he was squished by the irritated dancers. Who then came and squished us.

Thats it for trash wipes since we go on to clear the rest of the trash flawlessly. As for moroes, well let the pain begin. The next hour consisted of adds running amok smashing whoever they damn well felt like and dps passing the OT's threat so that when I was gouged they went smush instead of Moroes beating on the OT, and suggestions being thrown out everywhere so in the end nobody's quite sure who to listen to or what the hell is going on. Three wipes into the wipe fest Eliteassassin leaves (YAY YAY YAY!!) and we manage to recruit another guildie to replace him.

A couple wipes later we have respawns, we clear them but another of the pugged dps has to go, and we recruit another guildie, who to my shock manages to organize what is now a shambles of a raid. We wipe :). I can't remember what went wrong but I know I was face down on the floor after not too long. The next try however we down Him and much rejoicing was had by all.

It appeared that the more guildies we got in the better our raid did. Although I was disapointed that Moroes didn't drop his stop watch for me ... again.

Anyway here it is

The Moroes Tanking Guide

The MT and OT drag Moroes butt off to a predetermined spot and build as much threat as they can. Thats it ... thats all you need to know about the Moroes fight as a tank. What if something goes wrong you ask? Tough, theres not a god damn thing you can do about it. You tank Moroes, everything else is dealt with by the other classes, making this the most frustrating encounter to tank that I have ever faced.
THis

The Maiden

The run to the Maiden was nice and smooth. Ok I lied, we wiped on the trash due to an early pull on the 5 man group. But apart from that it was nice and smooth.

We get to the Maiden and, you guessed it, /wipe. I think it was the repentance that got us that time. We come back and down her on the second attempt. In this try I use up all my "Oh S***" buttons on the first two repentances, then I have to move the big lady over to the shammy wait for one of those consecrates to go off then bring her back to the center before she casts one of her random silences. Anyway YAY we down the maiden with only 2 healers and 1 cleanser and on only our second attempt.


End of post coming tomorrow I'm just too damn tired now :P

Saturday, April 12, 2008

No Posts On Fridays

I never post on fridays. So don't bother looking you'll just be disapointed.

The reason I don't post on fridays is because I will usually be on a date. ~LIE~

WTF?!? Who installed a lie detector in my blog? Who was it? Who ever it was I will hunt you down and punch you! ~TRUE~

You should fear me I'm built like a brick s**t house. ~LIE~

Ok, Ok ... But I know karate. ~LIE~

FINE!!! You wantr the truth?

The Beard scares the ladys away, ~TRUE~ I'm 5'11' and have the physicle constitution of someone made out of paper mache and rubber, ~TRUE~ I do however give a mean wedgie, ~TRUE~ and reason I don't post on fridays is because I will be busy playing WoW or table top strategy games ~TRUE~.

Are you happy now? ~YES~


*mutter mutter, f*****g lie detectors, mutter mutter, invent way to punch you through internet connection, mutter mutter*

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Adventures in 3v3 Arena - or - Please Make The Pain Stop.

Damn, I promised you tales of my adventures in the world of 3v3 arena didn't I?

I guess I will have to put the effort in then.

Damn I really hate having to make good on my promises.

It's not that I'm a bad person. It's just that I'm really really lazy.

Well here we go.

Noobing it up in arena. Take 2.

Like I was telling you we got ourselves a cockroach (paladin), whom we had cajoled, bullied, and bribed into forming a 3v3 team with us.

It was Wednesday and we had just done our 30 games of 2v2 and the pally had promised to do some games with us, and I wanted to get them over before the points were calculated.

He had other ideas.

He selfishly (Selfish because he wanted to do something other than what I had planed. Everyone should know that my needs are greater than theirs) wanted to do his dailies so that he could buy his epic flying mount some time sooner rather than later.

By the time I had convinced him to let me buy out his dailies, rather than do arena tomorrow the points had already been calculated. My reasoning for buying out his dailies was, that at that stage it was cheaper for me to buy them out than respec again, and I had already dropped 120 G on the charter and 100 G on respecs (as I needed to be prot the next day) so what was another 60 G.

Anyway after all my shouting, bitching and moaning at the pally we were ready to rock the arenas.

That was the plan anyway, the reality was to be vastly different.

To my great pleasure we won our first and second games. I can't give you the make ups or the details as what was to come wiped these clean from my mind. The wins boosted my confidence to extreme heights, which made the next game all the more painful as we met The Team. They deserve both the capitals and the italics. They were just that good. what made it worse was that we faced them for the next two games after that :(.

Game 3, 4, and 5

Warrior, Rogue, Druid.

We come racing out of the starting area and all we can see is this warrior. This throws us into complete disarray as we try to check their starting zone for the healer, watch for stealthers, and prevent this unholy wrecking machine of a warrior from stomping on our cockroach.

Let me tell you a little about this warrior. He's the warrior that all level 1 noobs want to grow up to be. He's the geared up warrior that makes all those hunters and warlocks cry at night, and features in the nightmares of the PvP priest. We tried to stop him, we tried to kill him, but he was like the bloody terminator.

Then just when we think we have him out pops the druid throwing heals and ruining our chance at stopping this hellish machine of destruction. Just as Kitty was about to unleash some hellish pwnage on their druid the rogue pops out and stun locks him. Then he teams up with the warrior doing what a nuclear holocaust couldn't and killing the cockroach.

GAME OVER MAN, GAME OVER!!!

We come out of there stunned and deflated not really appreciating how well we had just been owned. This was to be corrected over the next two games.

In the second game Kitty was trying to wait for their healer to show before un-stealthing, this idea was to be ruined by the rogue who joined the warrior in knocking me and our pally senceless to the point at which he had to intervene and save our bacon. The bacon saving was short lived however as their healer showed himself as far away from us as possible but still throwing heals, our pallys bubble ran out, rogue goes into stun-lock mode on his ass and its game over again.

In the third game we had decided that if we faced them again, no matter what else happened we would kill that druid. A little chant started runnung though my mind "Druid, druid, KILL IT! Druid, druid, KILL IT!" over and over again. We got That Team again and as soon as the druid showed his face Kitty and I were all over him.

Kitty: Theres the druid.

Me: KILL HIM!!! KILL HIM!!! KILL HIM!!!

Kitty: I'm trying!

Me: Me too!

Me: GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!! I HATE DRUIDS!!!!!

While we had designs on ending the druids life in fairly short order, as it turns out he just wasn't down with that plan. He kited our asses all overthe arena before finally kicking the bucket. In the meantime the warrior and rogie had been fully healed and had torn our pally into tiny little pruple pieces. Having minced the pally to their satisfaction, they then turned their attention on Kitty, as I was to spend this time sapped, gouged, kidney shoted and blind. Having made Kitty litter out of the furball they come at me ... I die ... Painfully and horribly!

What the hell were they doing in our bracket???? Get out! Get out now and leave us alone you bullies.

Game 6 was a loss as well, but we were just glad it was not That Team, And the relief of not playing them kind of blocked what happened from my mind.

Game 7

Mage, Mage, Mage.

AAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrgh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This was the other team that blocked all the others from my mind. I tell you I nearly had a nervouse break down as I was casting about for a target that was anything, anything, but a mage. I spent the first 15- 20 seconds of the match running in circles around the middle of the arena frightened out of my poor little warrior mind.

Finally I calmed down a little and hit one, he frost noved me. Another mage blinked next to me so I hit him as well, then he ran away and frost novad me aswell. Then the third mage ran into my mellee range just as the second nova wore of, I hit him, and to my shock I was not instantly cc'd and killed. He seamed to be out of Frost Nova YAY, YAY, YAY!!! I lay into him like god had just given me frost resistance 5000. Mr Axe meet Mr. clothie ... he Blinks, I Intercept ... he goes slpat just like a good clothie should when they meet Mr. Axe. By this time Kitty had already turned his mage into a chew toy ... and our pally was actually holy shocking the last one, and in the thows of "I actually get to do some damage." pleasure.

WIN WIN WIN!!!!!!!!!!! And I killed a mage. I cannot tell you how happy that makes me feel.



We do our last 4 games, one more win and three loses, one of the losses being against That Team again. and we finish the night 4-6.

Thus ends my intrepid exploration into the world of 3v3 arena ... Stay tuned for more next week.

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

New Shoulders ... And I'm chuffed

YAY finally I'm free!! free of those horrible blue tanking shoulders I have been carting around for what seams to have been years, and replaced them with the Spaudlers of Dementia. Which while they might not look great on the outside are purple through and through on the inside.

The story goes like this.

For the past few days I have been bugging a guildie to take me to Heroic Sethekk Halls so I could have a chance at replacing my crappy blue shoulders. She had put me off for days, even going so far as to drag me into different heroics to tank for her.

Enough is enough and I put my foot down, well not really, I just asked her again and she felt guilty about putting me off for so long, but it had the same effect :). So the next day (today) she sets about getting a group together for me. The advertisement went "Tank and healer looking for 3 suicidal dps" and to my suprise there were enough crazy people online to come with us. One however was a healer so Lady B. (as I shall refer to her) took out her crazy warlock alt and the group was good to go.

The instance went very well for the first while, especially considering that my blood/caffeine levels were very low at that time of the day. We one shotted the first boss, who died so quickly that it came as a suprise to everyone in the group. I should mention at this point that I was having a little trouble maintaining agrro as we had with us a mage decked out in BT /MH level gear. I mean he could pull aggro without thinking twice ... and often did, to my constant frustration.

Anyway it was all going well right up until the room before the second boss, where I got feared into another group. It was my fault I will freely admit it, I should have pulled the mob back further even if it meant sacrificing the mage ... something I am normally never afraid of doing.

Ok this is alright, I mean it wouldn't be a heroic if everything went perfectly ... well it would but it just wouldn't be the same in my books. Anyway we finish clearing the room and set up for the last pull before the boss.

Did I mention the rogue?

I didn't?

Well I guess thats because he was doing such a great job that the antics of the crazy warlock and the over powered mage completely glossed him over ... until now that is :). I have seen it more times than I can count. The rogue goes in to sap his target just like he's done a dosen times in that run ... except he's forgotten to stealth and you don't warn him because you think he's aware of it, I mean hes the one who's been playing the character for so long.

/wipe

Nope he wasn't aware that he'd forgotten to stealth.

Anyway when we finish the run back we lay into that group like they had just said bad things about our mothers. It was complete and utter carnage, except this time it was us doing it to them.

We then go on to one shot the second boss we had two casualties and only a combat rez from the lovely tree healer ... and my Goblin Jumper Cables XL seem to hate Lady B. But i was so excited that my sholders might have dropped that the group locked me in a chest to stop me looting while Lady B. ran back.


Riding the high we go to do the last boss, and since we had the lovely tree healer we could summon him :).

We wipe. On 14% .... I find that a particularly insulting percentage to wipe on. Too low to be a what did we do wrong wipe ... but too high to be a we are so going to get him next time wipe.

We wipe again, this time at 56%. Which in a strange way I found to be a much more satisfying wipe than the 14%. Now I'm high as a kite at having my shoulders drop, so I'm prepared to wipe until the dungeon resets if need be. So I leave the decision up to the others who decide to have one more go.

Boss down. ... ???? ... what? ... we killed him ??? ... but that didn't seem any different to the times we wiped. Who cares, whatever, I not going to argue that we shouldn't have downed a boss when we did. What do you take me for? Mad?

Thus ends the story of how I won my freedom from the oppressive forces of the crappy blue tanking shoulders.

Arena. I do. Do you?

Recently I formed a 2v2 arena team with a feral druid buddy of mine, and for the past two weeks we have been noobing it up in the arena. The first order of business for us was to decide on a team name and after much thought we settle on "are we dead yet".

The next order of business was to go and see what actually went on in this mythical arena place ... at first it seemed that just a lot of dieing went on, at least on our part. The other team seemed to do a lot of winning, and we didn't think that was very fare :( . So we set about he painful process of learning.

Lesson 1

Kill the healer.

If it can heal in any way shape or form kill it and kill it now. If you don't kill it the dps will kill you.

It's that simple, so what are you doing hitting that rogue?

Healer! Kill! Now!

Don't argue just do it.

Lesson 2

Don't run far out in front of your stealthed arena partner.

That one was all me. The kitty was stealthed and I had torn across the arena and charged into their starting area before he was even half was across. Predictably we lost. Now I give him a few seconds to make his way out before giving in to my warrior instincts to charge head long into the enemy.

Lesson 3

Favoritism - Warlocks, Shaman, Hunters. Thats what I will target regardless of the other more important targets around. In that order too.

It turns out I have an almost uncontrollable warlock fixation, if there is one in the arena I completely loose my cool and hound him until he or I are dead. And let me tell you there is nothing more dogged than a warrior. Ask any hunter or druid and they will tell you that you can kite a warrior around for hours and he will never give up.

Shaman are a close second on my list, I thought it was Hunters that I preferred but it turns out that of the two I will hit the Shaman every time. I guess it's because they are one of those nasty healing classes ... that and they thought wearing mail would save them, pfft, silly squishy person.

Then it's the hunter, oooh the hunter. Even though I will hit the Shaman before the hunter I get much more pleasure out of a hunter kill. With the Shaman killed I get the satisfaction of a job well done, but with the hunter I get a wave of pure pleasure. I have however come to fear the BM hunter.

Damn you Bestial Wrath!!!

Damn you to hell!!!!

Lesson 4


Aversion.

Mages, mages, mages.

It turns out I would rather take on anything but even the most under geared mage. I hates 'em it's that simple. Well it's a little more complicated than that. I hates 'em cuz they dun stop me hittin' dem wid ma big axe. And let me tell you there is no bigger sin in a warriors book than that. I don't mind if you can kill me hands down no contest, I don't mind if you kite me around for hours, I don't even mind if you stun me repeatedly, but if you just point blank refuse to be hit ... well thats just not kosher.

Lesson 5

Trinkets.

This one took a lot longer than it should have to sink in. If you don't already have it get the Medallion of the Alliance NOW. This is another one of those kill the healer things. It's just non negotiable.

Did I just hear you back talk me on this?

No?

I better not have!

Anyway long after we worked out how to deal with my warlock fixation this was still a problem. Fixing the warlock thing was easy, my arena partner just yells at me in voice chat until I hit the correct target.

The trinket problem only came to light when we figured out how to win a few games.

We win by pure, unadulterated melee dps. There is no finesse to it. I charge the target and Ham String it before the charge stun wares off. Then the kitty pounces and by the time the pounce stun wares off the target is close to death and unable to run away (refreshed Ham String). It then gets finished off by fast damage and a big Execute (as if there is any other kind). Leaving us 2v1 Muhahahahahaha!!!

Then Kitty backs off and throws a couple of HoT's on whoever needs it.

The problem appears when half of the dps is missing due to being sheeped or frost nova (thats me), or being feared half way across the arena bouncing off walls in terror (thats kitty). Then the non cc'd team mate gets killed and it's 2v1 Booooooooo!!!!!!!!

I believe the reason it took so long for the lesson to sink in is that I can break fear any time of day or night, and Kitty can break sheep and other cc by changing form. But we are both completely helpless in the face of the cc our class doesn't deal with.

Lesson 6

The nemesis.

Every team will have a certain combination they are weak against, for us it takes just one member of the team to be a paladin.

Damn you!!!

You PvP cockroach!!!!

As stated above we win by pure, unadulterated, brute force and ignorance ... Then comes the bubble. The bubble kills us and we hate it. It pops up at that critical time when the pounce has worn off and I cant execute yet, leaving us without our main advantage and a fully healed pally. One of which danced after healing himself, Grrrrrrr!!! Thats just rubbing it in.

*Mutter mutter ... damn cockroach ... mutter mutter*

All is not lost! There is a slim hope. If I can fear the dps and kitty can throw that whirl wind thingy on him for the duration of the bubble we can still do it. It has only worked once as it requires good timing and the dps to be close enough to be feared, but it can be done. And that keeps us going.



Ok thats enough lessons for today. Now let me entertain you with some exerts from last nights 2v2.

We played 30 matches of 2v2.

Why?

Because it's fun, and the more we play the better we get.

I wont list out all the games as that would take too long, and I can't remember half of them anyway. The week before we also managed to drag our rating out og the depth where we were facing teams with a prot warrior (It was almost humiliating to be pared that low).


Mage, Shaman - BeM.


Me: Kill the shaman!!

Kitty: Ok

*Some time passes with me soloing the restro shaman and the other two out of line of sight*

Me: why is the mage dead? *Having noticed it was 2v1 now*

Kitty: I thought it was the Shaman.


Hunter, Hunter - BeM

Me: Target my target to concentrate dps! *I tend to get shouty in arenas*

Kitty: Ok.

*Some time passes in a whirl of pets frost traps and jump-shotting hunters, in which I manage to kill the non-BM hunter then die*

Me: Where the hell where you?

Kitty: Dead

*I had fought everything but the first 20 seconds solo without noticing that they had focus fired kitty into next week*

Shaman, Warrior - Ruins

Me
: Kill the Shaman!!! *My Shaman preference was well noted at this stage*

Kitty: Like I need to be told, always leave the warrior till last. *It's just too much hassel to kill them with any kind of healing*

*We do our thing, for 5 seconds and I'm left standing wondering why I have no target*

Me: What the hell happened to the Shaman?

Kitty: He did know what hit him. *we then laugh so hard the warrior nearly kills us both ... we really had killed the shaman in under 5 seconds*


Comments After: Warlock, Priest; Warlock, Priest; Mage, Warrior. In Order

*kitty spends entire match feared*
Me: You need that trinket.

*kitty spends entire match feared*
Me: You Really need that trinket.

*I spend entire match sheeped then frost novad*
Me: I really need that trinket.


Warlock, Mage - BeM

*kitty gets feared and I get nuked ... again ... then kitty goes stealth*

Me: You really Really need that trinket

Kitty: Shut up.

*Kitty then catches the warlock separated from the mage and goes through him like he was stuffed with catnip ... I'm serious I have never seen a 'lock die so fast*

Me: Wow!! why Didn't you do that earlier?

*Kitty says nothing as he's busy breaking off to stealth again*

*About five minutes ensues of me shouting instructions, the mage going nuts jumping about the place, and Kitty trying to get in position behind him *

*Kitty gets behind the mage ... see warlock for details*

Me: Did you need me at all?

Kitty: No.




Coming soon, our adventures into 3v3 arena ... Look out world we got ourselves a cockroach ... I mean Pally

Saturday, April 5, 2008

What Warriors Want

Warriors are tanks. Thats what everyone who isn't a warrior thinks, and while there are a few of us out there who are completely content with this, let me tell you the secret desire lurking in the heart of every prot warrior. We want to D ... P ... S. We want to be that one in a million lucky son of a gun that gets to raid swinging the big 2-hander. We want to charge into a group of non-elite trash mobs pop whirlwind and sweeping strikes and watch the big numbers fly even as the healers are cursing the very day we were born.

What your happy as a tank?

Come on, admit it you want to feel that face splitting grin spread as you unleash the fury. You want to have that dps warrior feeling again. You know that feeling you get, the one where the numbers on the threat meter mean less and less and the ones popping up over the mob you hitting mean more and more, you know if you continue like that your going to pull aggro and die but you just cant seem to make yourself care.

You want to feel that again don't you?

Yes I thought so.

There is that one little problem though isn't there?

Demand. Everyone wants tanks and nobody really needs another dps when the game is so full of classes that can do nothing else. If your lucky there is room for one dps warrior in a 25 man raid, and then only if they are carrying a lot of physical damage dealers.

Are you going to get that spot?

No your not are you? You've already been pushed into the tanking roll and there is no way they are going to give that up so you can gin maniacally muttering under you breath things like "The big numberz my preciousssss. We wants them."

So guilds be warned, lurking under the surface of your usually stable main tank lies a raving dps junkie just waiting to get out. Ask him some time if he has a decent set of dps gear. If he does you can bet he will jump down you throat and rip your tonsils out trying to get at that half a chance to raid in a dps slot. Unless of course hes afraid he might lose a permanent raid position, I mean thats the reason we went Protection in the first place, so that we can raid.

Ok so not all mages are bad.

Last night I ran heroic mech with a guildie mage and a mage from my friends list ... and I had a great time :)

They let me pull, kept their sheep sheeped, and were not noticably drunk.

They didn't even complain too much when I broke their sheep.
Bad Tank! - 5 tanking brownie points for you.
Good mages! + 10 tanking brownie point for each of you.

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Mages!! Aaaaaarrrrrggh!!!

I used to like mages. What happened to you guys? You used to be cool. Ok you play wow so you were never cool, but you came darn close.

I will just take a moment to point out that I have become slightly prejudiced towards mages as I have been doing a lot of PvP lately. I mean as a warrior you charge a mage, they frost nova, you get out of frost nova and Intercept, they blink away and you stuck with that nasty slowing debuff. Then it's piles of burst damage and your dead. Also if they don,t fell like dealing with you just yet they polymorph you and save you for later while they go annoy someone else (damn trinket cooldown).

But it's not just the power of the PvP mage that has prompted this post, oh no. Let me tell you a little story.

/cast Tale of Mage Woe

I recently joined a new guild as I had an argument with my old guild leader and left. Anyway I wanted to get to know the people in my new guild so I went and tanked the new sunwell instance a few times for them. The first two times went well and all was good in the world. Then a call went out in guild chat late at night asking if anyone wanted to do Magisters Terrace on normal, I volunteered. It turns out the restoration druid, who put out the call in guild chat, and myself were the only people online who were willing or able to go. So the Druid starts casting about looking for dps and we get a mage, he asks for group leader as he has another mage in his guild who wants to come, then a hunter from their guild joins. Ok thats nice, we have three cc, which is good as there are a lot of big pulls in MT.

We all arrive down at MT and get ready to enter when one of the mages pipes up that the otherone should take leader since he was on his 4th beer of the night and that would make marking slow. It was only then that I realised that they had just hijacked our pug. The other mage refused the leader on the grounds that he was hungover. The hunter said nothing ... he continued to do so all night.

From here on out things got worse and worse as the marking mage would give us beer by beer updates on how drunk he was getting, and the other mage would just not let me pull, as soon as the first mage had put the last mark down (which would sometimes take a while) he would sheep. This left me running around trying to pick up 2-3 targets instead of letting them come to me, and then he would complain when he died. /angry tank face.

The run was plaged by slow marking, constant toilet breaks and silent hunters. Even though we muddle our way through the instance, and even downed the last boss it still left me with a bad taste in my mouth. The taste of incompetent mage.