The Paladin!
Those holy crusaders of light, those knights in shining armor, the paladin is a hybrid class much like the druid. While alot of a paladin's moves may seem like spells, most of them don't really feel that way. You've got your hammer of righteousness, which throws a hammer at 3 (or 4 glyph'd) mobs, your shield of righteousness, which is the paladin's answer to shield slam (I call it shield slam anyway). Paladins are all about righteousness in fact, with some righteous fury to increase your threat from holy damage, and it gives you some damage reduction when you're protection, you are protection right? Really, when you get down to it, paladin moves are very similar to a warrior. You're up there in their face, throwing holy fury in the face of your enemy instead of steel. Well, there's still steel in there, but it's HOLY STEEL!
Lets look at the paladin's moves. Paladins have a pretty inventive rotation, which is called the 96969 rotation. Basically, your rotation starts with a 9 second cooldown, then alternates with 6 second cooldown moves. So you pull the mobs with Avenger's Shield, which hits 3 enemies and silences them and dazes them. Here they come! You can start your rotation before they get to you with Holy Shield, which increases your chance to block and also causes alot of damage to the enemy who you blocked. Then you hit them with your Hammer of Righteousness, which hits 3 enemies. At this point if you're fighting 3 enemies, you've got a significant amount of threat on all of them, might as well help yourself, Judgement of Wisdom will help you get some mana back on every melee swing, kinda like rage! So now you'll wanna put some hurt on the main target, and Shield of Righteousness is just the move. Swing your shield at their head for bonus points! Then finish off the cycle by throwing down some holy ground with Consecration, which does damage every second to all mobs around you. The ultimate paladin ability, but it sure does use alot of mana! If you're fighting a boss you can usually leave this one out unless you are expecting company.
Paladins also have some other utility spells that are unique to them. Besides the multitude of buffs, they also have Hand spells, which provide the target with certain abilities, like immunity from melee damage, snares and roots, or even lower their threat. You can even share the damage they take. Also, originally a holy paladin ability which was converted to help tanks when they nerfed blessing of sanctuary, Divine Plea gives you a good chunk of mana back as long as it's up. Protection paladins get a talent that refreshes its duration whenever you hit something, so it's possible to keep it up all the time. In fact, there's a glyph that gives you some damage mitigation if it's up! The only downside is your heals are halved, which isn't a big deal since you're taking the hits, not healing them. As you can see, paladins are very far from druids when tanking. SO MANY BUTTONS! This could be seen as an advantage or disadvantage. If you're looking for a tank with alot of options while tanking, you may want to give the paladin a look.
Paladins certainly can dish it out, and have been dishing it out to AOE packs since Burning Crusade, but they can take it too. The Holy Shield ability can allow you to block every hit once your gear gets good enough, and with talents and glyphs you can get a pretty hefty percent of damage reduced. But they certainly are lacking in the defensive cooldown department. You can try your luck with the bubble/taunt combo, which makes you immune to damage, but the mob will only like you for as long as you've got him taunted. Be ready to click it off when taunt wears off or hope another tank can grab it. The only real CD that a prot pally has is Divine Protection. It gives a pretty hefty chunk of damage reduction, and is on a respectable 3 minute cooldown. It's pretty boring, just like a warrior's Shield Wall, it's good for a tight spot in a fight. One last move I'll mention, which because of its long cooldown does not make it viable to rely on, and that's Lay of Hands. Probably the only ability that's lasted from the very first time anyone ever thought of a paladin in ye olde D&D. It heals the target for a huge amount, equal to all of the paladin's health, and also grants some mana. This can be useful to use on yourself if you're about to die, but the 20 minute (!) cooldown means its something you may not have available every boss fight. Use it only in dire emergencies!
Finally, I want to talk about another main attraction of pallies, their versatility! Like the druid, a paladin is capable of healing, tanking, and doing damage. They can't do ranged DPS though, so if that's one of the things you like, you may want to look at druids more closely. And another advantage of being a paladin tank... your offset holy gear will rain down from the mobs whether you like it or not! It always seems like all the spell power plate you could ever want will drop when you're tanking, and wouldn't you know, not another paladin around for miles. Grats! I think I got 6 healing epics my first naxx10 run and only 1 tanking item. And the tanking item was a set piece... so yeah.
Thanks for reading, next up is Warriors, so don't touch that dial!
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Monday, May 25, 2009
Ding 80!
I do intend to continue with my groundwork articles, but I was distracted this past holiday weekend by my paladin finally making it to 80! I have to say that I've missed really going out there and tanking like crazy in pug after pug. It's really a great way to learn, as opposed to running with guildies all the time who may be way better geared and able to pick up my slack. I spent alot more gold than I intended on him, getting his flying mount and dual spec, but I think of those as investments that I would probably need to buy anyway.
I also spent a little time on my deathknight, pushing him to 76, but honestly I am having troubles getting my head around DK tanking. I know what I'm supposed to do, but it just seems like when anything unexpected happens i'm thrown off my rotation and then i'm just stuck with runes cooling down and mobs running amok. And by that point I have no way to get them back. I've just gotta get in the right mindset and learn to play better with him.
I think that I may write my paladin article next, I'd like to do some more tanking on my warrior before I write that one, since I haven't tanked with him in a while, well before 3.1 came out.
I also spent a little time on my deathknight, pushing him to 76, but honestly I am having troubles getting my head around DK tanking. I know what I'm supposed to do, but it just seems like when anything unexpected happens i'm thrown off my rotation and then i'm just stuck with runes cooling down and mobs running amok. And by that point I have no way to get them back. I've just gotta get in the right mindset and learn to play better with him.
I think that I may write my paladin article next, I'd like to do some more tanking on my warrior before I write that one, since I haven't tanked with him in a while, well before 3.1 came out.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Some Groundwork! The Druid!
I think that I'm going to start the actual content on here with how the different tanking classes feel when playing.
The druid!
I'll start with those cuddly bears first, since he is my new main and the guild's MT. What makes bears so great? Well, for me, the feel of combat is very similar to other melee classes, as you might expect. Bears and warriors are close cousins in battle, and basic moves can be easily compared between them. A happy bear charges into combat, swipes all the mobs a couple times, then mauls the crap out of them one by one. Bears are very visceral, the moves feel fluid and the animations are good for the kinds of moves you're doing. When I hit mangle, it really feels like I just mangled that orc to pieces. It's really in your face satisfaction with the druid.
The moves that a bear has available may look small compared to, say, a paladin, but I don't think of that as a weakness. It's very much an advantage to me. Every move has it's purpose, and they all seem to work together to turn that cuddly bundle of fur into whirling dervish of teeth and claws. Feral Faerie Fire is a great pulling tool, puts up a debuff, and doesn't use ammo! Its short CD also means i can go back to it in low rage situations since it costs nothing to cast. Mangle does significant damage and also puts up a debuff to increase bleed damage. This is important for lacerate, the bear's answer to stacking sunders. Ok, it may not be the same, but it definately feels the same. The penalty for letting sunders drop is a bit more of a problem than lacerate though, so that's another reason I like it. Maul is just a move, it's kind of boring, I've got it macro'd with my mangle so I don't have to worry about it. It's good, with the glyph its damage is pretty amazing for trash, but it's not all that impressive as far as gameplay is concerned. But swipe, on the other hand, is really amazing. This move used to be pretty terrible. They totally redesigned it and it is THE move of bears. Swipe swipe swipe! Hit mobs behind you, in front of you, all around you! It's great threat on packs, and I've even held packs against prot paladins, the supposed kings of aoe packs.
What I like about feral druids is the only ability that has a CD in our standard rotation is mangle, but with maul macro'd with it, you can still hit it as often as you like. This really allows us to fine tune our threat generation to tailor the situation. 3 or more mobs? Swipe and maul like crazy! 2 mobs? Maul and mangle ftw! Just that one guy? Mangle, maul, and stack those bleeds up! No need to wait for CDs, you can modify what kind of threat you are doing on the fly. It's that kind of control that makes druids great.
Ok they can dish it out, but can they take it? You Bet! Bears have alot of armor and alot of HP to take the hits. They also stack dodge exclusively via Agi. Because bears share gear with (ugh) rogues and cats, they make use of agi for avoidance, and now, thanks to savage defense, utilize all that crit and AP on the gear, too. Against most bosses in ulduar, you can expect to keep that little shield up most of the time, which is great to help out those people in the back with the dresses on throwing light at you. Druids often get flak for not having alot of defensive cooldowns, but I think they have just enough. Barkskin is on a short CD and gives a good bit of relief on incoming damage. It also puts a spinning barrier of thorns around your head, which is also cool. Taking alot of damage? Survival instincts increases your HP by a fair amount, which gives the healers more of a cushion to the incoming hits. You can also use your frenzied regeneration at the same time, which converts rage into healing, and glyphed, it will also increase the healing you take from it. The heals are percent based, which is why it's a good idea to use it when you've increased your HP from survival instincts. There's another handy tool that isn't very useful for raid bosses, but can be used pretty creatively to produce some positive results, and that's nature's grasp. It's a buff that casts roots on the next thing that hits you, allowing you to run away from it. Take that chance to shed that bear form and throw a few heals on yourself, maybe even moonfire the punk before shifting back into bear. Like I said, not terribly useful, but it certainly has some use in PVP.
The last think I'm going to talk about is versatility. Druids are the true jack of all trades. You've got it all, tanking, healing, melee dps, and caster dps. You could walk around with 4 sets of gear and be whatever the game has to offer. That kind of flexability is one of the druid's greatest strengths. Warriors are fun and all, but if you get bored of hitting stuff with swords, you've gotta log out, because that's all they got. Druids can do it all, and they are quite good at it, too. My druid is dual spec'd resto, and he gets plenty of use out of it, because as awesome as tanking is, you need some variety in your life.
If you've read this far, congratulations! Next time I'll be talking about warriors, so stay tuned!
The druid!
I'll start with those cuddly bears first, since he is my new main and the guild's MT. What makes bears so great? Well, for me, the feel of combat is very similar to other melee classes, as you might expect. Bears and warriors are close cousins in battle, and basic moves can be easily compared between them. A happy bear charges into combat, swipes all the mobs a couple times, then mauls the crap out of them one by one. Bears are very visceral, the moves feel fluid and the animations are good for the kinds of moves you're doing. When I hit mangle, it really feels like I just mangled that orc to pieces. It's really in your face satisfaction with the druid.
The moves that a bear has available may look small compared to, say, a paladin, but I don't think of that as a weakness. It's very much an advantage to me. Every move has it's purpose, and they all seem to work together to turn that cuddly bundle of fur into whirling dervish of teeth and claws. Feral Faerie Fire is a great pulling tool, puts up a debuff, and doesn't use ammo! Its short CD also means i can go back to it in low rage situations since it costs nothing to cast. Mangle does significant damage and also puts up a debuff to increase bleed damage. This is important for lacerate, the bear's answer to stacking sunders. Ok, it may not be the same, but it definately feels the same. The penalty for letting sunders drop is a bit more of a problem than lacerate though, so that's another reason I like it. Maul is just a move, it's kind of boring, I've got it macro'd with my mangle so I don't have to worry about it. It's good, with the glyph its damage is pretty amazing for trash, but it's not all that impressive as far as gameplay is concerned. But swipe, on the other hand, is really amazing. This move used to be pretty terrible. They totally redesigned it and it is THE move of bears. Swipe swipe swipe! Hit mobs behind you, in front of you, all around you! It's great threat on packs, and I've even held packs against prot paladins, the supposed kings of aoe packs.
What I like about feral druids is the only ability that has a CD in our standard rotation is mangle, but with maul macro'd with it, you can still hit it as often as you like. This really allows us to fine tune our threat generation to tailor the situation. 3 or more mobs? Swipe and maul like crazy! 2 mobs? Maul and mangle ftw! Just that one guy? Mangle, maul, and stack those bleeds up! No need to wait for CDs, you can modify what kind of threat you are doing on the fly. It's that kind of control that makes druids great.
Ok they can dish it out, but can they take it? You Bet! Bears have alot of armor and alot of HP to take the hits. They also stack dodge exclusively via Agi. Because bears share gear with (ugh) rogues and cats, they make use of agi for avoidance, and now, thanks to savage defense, utilize all that crit and AP on the gear, too. Against most bosses in ulduar, you can expect to keep that little shield up most of the time, which is great to help out those people in the back with the dresses on throwing light at you. Druids often get flak for not having alot of defensive cooldowns, but I think they have just enough. Barkskin is on a short CD and gives a good bit of relief on incoming damage. It also puts a spinning barrier of thorns around your head, which is also cool. Taking alot of damage? Survival instincts increases your HP by a fair amount, which gives the healers more of a cushion to the incoming hits. You can also use your frenzied regeneration at the same time, which converts rage into healing, and glyphed, it will also increase the healing you take from it. The heals are percent based, which is why it's a good idea to use it when you've increased your HP from survival instincts. There's another handy tool that isn't very useful for raid bosses, but can be used pretty creatively to produce some positive results, and that's nature's grasp. It's a buff that casts roots on the next thing that hits you, allowing you to run away from it. Take that chance to shed that bear form and throw a few heals on yourself, maybe even moonfire the punk before shifting back into bear. Like I said, not terribly useful, but it certainly has some use in PVP.
The last think I'm going to talk about is versatility. Druids are the true jack of all trades. You've got it all, tanking, healing, melee dps, and caster dps. You could walk around with 4 sets of gear and be whatever the game has to offer. That kind of flexability is one of the druid's greatest strengths. Warriors are fun and all, but if you get bored of hitting stuff with swords, you've gotta log out, because that's all they got. Druids can do it all, and they are quite good at it, too. My druid is dual spec'd resto, and he gets plenty of use out of it, because as awesome as tanking is, you need some variety in your life.
If you've read this far, congratulations! Next time I'll be talking about warriors, so stay tuned!
My History!
When I first started playing WoW, I rolled a rogue, because my friends said it was easy and I could level quickly. This was the most important thing to me, since I had played EQ for 3 years and never got past level 53. Granted, most of that time was spent socializing and watching the auctions in north freeport, but still.
So here I was in WoW, leveling, doing stuff, and it was great. I finally got within striking distance of 60, and was so excited. I took a week's vacation from work to relax and make the final push to 60, and I did it! I had made it, I thought. Now what? Well, time to do all the fun stuff my friends talked about. 60 rogue LFG UBRS LBRS SCHOLO STRAT! 6 hours later I logged off. Man, it was hard getting a group! Group after group would tell me, sorry, we're full on rogues and hunters. Well crap. So i decided to try out the new Alterac Valley while i was looking for groups. 6 hours later, still in queue, still looking for a group.
This went on for quite a while... Finally, after my friends said they couldn't get me into their MC guild, I decided to try my luck elsewhere. My server was plagued with queues and I decided to reroll on another friend's server, a roleplay server, and this time I was gonna do it right! I made my first warrior, and with my wife playing her new rogue, we started again. This time we knew what we were doing, and we were 2 manning solo stuff, so we ripped through the levels, finally dinging to 60 in silithus.
Finally, with my sword and shield equipped, i was able to see all those fun instances. I had made it! We ran UBRS, LBRS, Scholo, Strat, all those fun instances. It was great. For a while. Once we had run all there was to run, and I had cleared Scholo for the 20th time with no warrior helmet to show, I craved more. I craved MC!
The guild i was in was never going to raid. We barely had the people to run dungeons, no way we could get 40 people to do a raid. So i went looking. This was about the time that paid transfers came out, and there was a brand new server full of guilds looking for who knows what. So I made my level 1 alt, hopped over to ironforge, and began looking. Holy cow, this guild wants rogues?!? It was fate. I sent them a tell and told them about me and my wife, our 60s on other servers, and they offered us a spot. So I transfered my rogue and she transfered her druid (who was not quite at 60, but was close enough to get some help leveling from the guild, they really want healers too). And we did it. We were totally raiding!
My guild was called Enders, and had ambitions to be the top guild on steamwheedle cartel. The guild was run by a boyfriend/girlfriend combo who were our MT/MH combo and great raid leaders. We were also in competition for realm first kills, and another guild, who had alot of transfers who already had full t2, were killing stuff left and right. But we did manange to get a realm first gaar kill and were 2nd on alot of other bosses. We went on to clear MC and even started talking about BWL. It was perfect.
Then, the happy couple started having problems. In hindsight, it was probably part of the act, but we didn't see it for that at the time. A couple days later, they were gone, with the contents of our bank, which they had on their characters, and all of our MT gear. The guild was shattered. It fell apart left and right. Alot of us tried to start it again, reformed a couple times before finally they settled on the name Pantheon. But the damage had been done for me. And my friends from my old server had rerolled too, on a PVP server, and were officers now so they guaranteed me a spot in their guild, which was working on AQ40. I took it as fate, and off we went to level again (since back then you couldn't transfer from a PVE server to a PVP server).
Of course looking back, I wished we had stayed with Pantheon. They are doing really well now. They were clearing Sunwell with the best of them and are currently top on their server, and pretty high US wide. Shout out to my dwarf warrior friend Tubs, who became the inspiration for what I would become.
Anyway, back to the story... We once again set out to reroll on another server, this time a pvp server. I consulted my friends, what was the best combo to survive for me and my wife? Mage/paladin was the reply! So off we went. A paladin healer and a frost mage, ripping through levels, finally getting to 60 shortly before 2.0 hit. We went to BWL, we went to AQ20, we even went to AQ40! It was great, even though their guild was full of arrogant people, they got stuff done, and we were happy to be along for the ride.
BURNING CRUSADE! It was great! I set out into outlands with a full weeks vacation and plenty of sodas and hot pockets. My wife decided to reroll a shaman while I rushed to 70. 6 days later I was one of 5 people at 70 in the guild, and was the 3rd person to get my karazhan key. I was psyched! I was guaranteed a spot in the first raid group! I even beat my friends to that point since they hadn't taken time off, suckers!
We had to delay a week because we didn't have enough with keys to start karazhan that week, and by next week, there was about 15 with the key. And even though I was one of the people running instances for gear 24/7 and helping with key quests, I was benched for raid 1. Ok, I had thought that might happen, I'm still kind of new. Group 2's roster was posted... and who wasn't on it? Yep, yours truely. I was devastated. I had worked my ass off to get to that point, I had a ton of gear, better than 3/4 the guild at that point (blues were the new purpz remember!). And they had benched me. I was a fill in for whoever didn't show.
Needless to say, I was pissed. I was so mad, I quit the guild, even though my friends were officers and said they would get me into one of the runs, even though my wife was still in the middle of her leveling competition with the other guild's new shamen, i /quit that guild like it was about to disband.
The next day, I transfered my character back home. Back to that server I had been a rogue on so long ago. I was back! And then they were all back, all my characters. My wife's too, eventually. I thought, these guilds are run by morons, surely I know what it takes to make a great guild. So I set out to start my own guild. We got a sizable number, and I switched to playing my warrior full time to help the guild as a tank. Now, I had been missing my warrior all this time, and I had newbie warriors on all those servers I had played on at various levels. I just loved everything about them. So I was excited not only cause I was guild leader of my own guild, but also tanking on my warrior. It was a good time. We had troubles recruiting, but we managed to get 5 consistant members on to be able to run instances and heroics. And we began the karazhan hunt.
Well, we had half a run, surely some other guild had half a run we could join. I found a good guild that was in the same situation as we were, and we teamed up to run KZ. We finally cleared it shortly before BoJ were introduced to KZ, and I was excited about getting them running kara. Then the drama started. The other guild had a loudmouth that was sending tells to my guildies during the runs, but noone had said anything about his abuse in tells until 3 people stopped logging in on raid nights. After some digging, i found out what was going on, and we broke the alliance off.
So now we were stuck. Noone wanted to risk another alliance, but we wanted to raid, but were really picky about recruits so we had only gathered another 2 during that time. 7 people did not a karazhan raid make. So after some talk, we decided to join another guild, to absorb into theirs. A few didn't come with, but 5 of us did, and join Mayor of Stormwind. They had been running kara for a while and were building up for 25 man raids. We ran some raids with them for a while and really felt like we were home.
But making the transition to 25 man raids was harsh, and though we were able to get to SSC, various things kept the guild from making it past lurker. We had one spectacular Hydross attempt, when, at 10%, the frost tank D/C'd. We wiped at 5%, never again getting close. Shortly after people began to leave, and we tried to scale back to kara, but it was no use. The majority of the guild decided to give up on raiding for a while, so I decided to start looking for a raid guild for my warrior. We decided to join a guild we had run a couple Gruul's lair with, RKoD. We did more Kara and then did some ZA when it was released, but we could never get the showing for SSC. We gave in and decided that 10 mans were it. Eventually, drama began to creep up, and my wife and I had seen more than our share, so we decided to bail and hang out with our friends back in MoS. We did heroics, did some kara occasionally, and I pugged some other raids, too.
Then we decided that the hell with the (25)man, we were gonna get back into raiding 10s. So we recruited, ran ZA every week, and worked up a good roster. And here I am now, an officer in a guild with friends, tanking stuff left and right. And this is where the story begins...
So here I was in WoW, leveling, doing stuff, and it was great. I finally got within striking distance of 60, and was so excited. I took a week's vacation from work to relax and make the final push to 60, and I did it! I had made it, I thought. Now what? Well, time to do all the fun stuff my friends talked about. 60 rogue LFG UBRS LBRS SCHOLO STRAT! 6 hours later I logged off. Man, it was hard getting a group! Group after group would tell me, sorry, we're full on rogues and hunters. Well crap. So i decided to try out the new Alterac Valley while i was looking for groups. 6 hours later, still in queue, still looking for a group.
This went on for quite a while... Finally, after my friends said they couldn't get me into their MC guild, I decided to try my luck elsewhere. My server was plagued with queues and I decided to reroll on another friend's server, a roleplay server, and this time I was gonna do it right! I made my first warrior, and with my wife playing her new rogue, we started again. This time we knew what we were doing, and we were 2 manning solo stuff, so we ripped through the levels, finally dinging to 60 in silithus.
Finally, with my sword and shield equipped, i was able to see all those fun instances. I had made it! We ran UBRS, LBRS, Scholo, Strat, all those fun instances. It was great. For a while. Once we had run all there was to run, and I had cleared Scholo for the 20th time with no warrior helmet to show, I craved more. I craved MC!
The guild i was in was never going to raid. We barely had the people to run dungeons, no way we could get 40 people to do a raid. So i went looking. This was about the time that paid transfers came out, and there was a brand new server full of guilds looking for who knows what. So I made my level 1 alt, hopped over to ironforge, and began looking. Holy cow, this guild wants rogues?!? It was fate. I sent them a tell and told them about me and my wife, our 60s on other servers, and they offered us a spot. So I transfered my rogue and she transfered her druid (who was not quite at 60, but was close enough to get some help leveling from the guild, they really want healers too). And we did it. We were totally raiding!
My guild was called Enders, and had ambitions to be the top guild on steamwheedle cartel. The guild was run by a boyfriend/girlfriend combo who were our MT/MH combo and great raid leaders. We were also in competition for realm first kills, and another guild, who had alot of transfers who already had full t2, were killing stuff left and right. But we did manange to get a realm first gaar kill and were 2nd on alot of other bosses. We went on to clear MC and even started talking about BWL. It was perfect.
Then, the happy couple started having problems. In hindsight, it was probably part of the act, but we didn't see it for that at the time. A couple days later, they were gone, with the contents of our bank, which they had on their characters, and all of our MT gear. The guild was shattered. It fell apart left and right. Alot of us tried to start it again, reformed a couple times before finally they settled on the name Pantheon. But the damage had been done for me. And my friends from my old server had rerolled too, on a PVP server, and were officers now so they guaranteed me a spot in their guild, which was working on AQ40. I took it as fate, and off we went to level again (since back then you couldn't transfer from a PVE server to a PVP server).
Of course looking back, I wished we had stayed with Pantheon. They are doing really well now. They were clearing Sunwell with the best of them and are currently top on their server, and pretty high US wide. Shout out to my dwarf warrior friend Tubs, who became the inspiration for what I would become.
Anyway, back to the story... We once again set out to reroll on another server, this time a pvp server. I consulted my friends, what was the best combo to survive for me and my wife? Mage/paladin was the reply! So off we went. A paladin healer and a frost mage, ripping through levels, finally getting to 60 shortly before 2.0 hit. We went to BWL, we went to AQ20, we even went to AQ40! It was great, even though their guild was full of arrogant people, they got stuff done, and we were happy to be along for the ride.
BURNING CRUSADE! It was great! I set out into outlands with a full weeks vacation and plenty of sodas and hot pockets. My wife decided to reroll a shaman while I rushed to 70. 6 days later I was one of 5 people at 70 in the guild, and was the 3rd person to get my karazhan key. I was psyched! I was guaranteed a spot in the first raid group! I even beat my friends to that point since they hadn't taken time off, suckers!
We had to delay a week because we didn't have enough with keys to start karazhan that week, and by next week, there was about 15 with the key. And even though I was one of the people running instances for gear 24/7 and helping with key quests, I was benched for raid 1. Ok, I had thought that might happen, I'm still kind of new. Group 2's roster was posted... and who wasn't on it? Yep, yours truely. I was devastated. I had worked my ass off to get to that point, I had a ton of gear, better than 3/4 the guild at that point (blues were the new purpz remember!). And they had benched me. I was a fill in for whoever didn't show.
Needless to say, I was pissed. I was so mad, I quit the guild, even though my friends were officers and said they would get me into one of the runs, even though my wife was still in the middle of her leveling competition with the other guild's new shamen, i /quit that guild like it was about to disband.
The next day, I transfered my character back home. Back to that server I had been a rogue on so long ago. I was back! And then they were all back, all my characters. My wife's too, eventually. I thought, these guilds are run by morons, surely I know what it takes to make a great guild. So I set out to start my own guild. We got a sizable number, and I switched to playing my warrior full time to help the guild as a tank. Now, I had been missing my warrior all this time, and I had newbie warriors on all those servers I had played on at various levels. I just loved everything about them. So I was excited not only cause I was guild leader of my own guild, but also tanking on my warrior. It was a good time. We had troubles recruiting, but we managed to get 5 consistant members on to be able to run instances and heroics. And we began the karazhan hunt.
Well, we had half a run, surely some other guild had half a run we could join. I found a good guild that was in the same situation as we were, and we teamed up to run KZ. We finally cleared it shortly before BoJ were introduced to KZ, and I was excited about getting them running kara. Then the drama started. The other guild had a loudmouth that was sending tells to my guildies during the runs, but noone had said anything about his abuse in tells until 3 people stopped logging in on raid nights. After some digging, i found out what was going on, and we broke the alliance off.
So now we were stuck. Noone wanted to risk another alliance, but we wanted to raid, but were really picky about recruits so we had only gathered another 2 during that time. 7 people did not a karazhan raid make. So after some talk, we decided to join another guild, to absorb into theirs. A few didn't come with, but 5 of us did, and join Mayor of Stormwind. They had been running kara for a while and were building up for 25 man raids. We ran some raids with them for a while and really felt like we were home.
But making the transition to 25 man raids was harsh, and though we were able to get to SSC, various things kept the guild from making it past lurker. We had one spectacular Hydross attempt, when, at 10%, the frost tank D/C'd. We wiped at 5%, never again getting close. Shortly after people began to leave, and we tried to scale back to kara, but it was no use. The majority of the guild decided to give up on raiding for a while, so I decided to start looking for a raid guild for my warrior. We decided to join a guild we had run a couple Gruul's lair with, RKoD. We did more Kara and then did some ZA when it was released, but we could never get the showing for SSC. We gave in and decided that 10 mans were it. Eventually, drama began to creep up, and my wife and I had seen more than our share, so we decided to bail and hang out with our friends back in MoS. We did heroics, did some kara occasionally, and I pugged some other raids, too.
Then we decided that the hell with the (25)man, we were gonna get back into raiding 10s. So we recruited, ran ZA every week, and worked up a good roster. And here I am now, an officer in a guild with friends, tanking stuff left and right. And this is where the story begins...
WHATS GOING ON BEARS CAN'T DRIVE CATAPULTS!!
I've started this blog to talk about my experiences with tanking. The twist is I will have all 4 tank classes that I will be playing regularly. I've already gotten my warrior and druid geared up from naxx 10 and 25, and am almost 80 with my paladin in my spare time. My Deathknight is 75, kind of an emo little guy back there, but I'll get to him some day. He tries so hard.
I am not going to focus on math on this blog. There are plenty of places that feature such things in better ways than I could do. This blog will concentrate on the experience of tanking, the distinctions between play styles, and how they compare to each other.
Everyone in my guild thinks I'm crazy for having so many tanks. They may be right!
I am not going to focus on math on this blog. There are plenty of places that feature such things in better ways than I could do. This blog will concentrate on the experience of tanking, the distinctions between play styles, and how they compare to each other.
Everyone in my guild thinks I'm crazy for having so many tanks. They may be right!
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