Better Late Than Never Friday, 2/26
Better Late Than Never Friday is a random monthly feature where I pull a bunch of search terms from Google Analytics that landed folks here and try to answer questions that may not be directly answered at this site, as gleaned from their keywords used.
Apologies for not posting yesterday, I got swamped and I didn’t really have anything good to write about. I mean, not much has happened this week in the world of tanking other than the warrior and DK buffs. There’s a Dev Chat tonight on Twitter and I’m eagerly hoping some interesting revelations about design philosophy or Cataclysm will be revealed. I have a question banked, but if any of you non-Tweeters have a good one share it in the comments and I’ll steal it if it’s better than my standby.
Anyway, the column!
if icehowl charges you what do you do
Gotta go when the volcano blows. Hold down your left or right strafe key as soon as you hit the wall and run off as soon as you unfreeze.
amplify magic festergut
There are a lot of fights in ICC that Amplify Magic wouldn’t be a bad idea for, at least for the tanks. Marrowgar the tanks should only be taking physical damage and skittering out of the coldflame post haste. On Saurfang literally all the damage is physical, even his “spells”, so everyone could have Amp Magic. Festergut the tanks are going to take mostly physical damage (with only trivial nature damage from the gas in the room) but there is still some magic damage to be had, so it’s a risk.
On the flip side of the coin, for offtanking Blood Queen and tanking Sindragosa, Amp Magic is a terrible idea. Way too much spell damage to split the difference.
how hard does festergut hit
During his three-stack major-pain phase (in 25man), he was hitting me for 25k a swing. Humorously–or maybe not–in heroic mode he melees for an average of 37.5k according to this thread. I like the way one guy described it, “like Brutallus dual-wielding Algalons.”
can you fight sindragosa without downing dreamwalker
No. The door to Sindra opens after Dreamwalker is rescued.
drinking game ulduar
Every time someone asks where to port to you take a drink.
best professions for a tankadin
I like my combo of Jewelcrafting (+63 stamina) with Engineering (+885 armor). You can’t go wrong with JC/Blacksmithing (+60 stamina) for an all-purpose combination, though.
1 tanking festergut
I suppose it’s possible, with a Paladin tanking him up to nine stacks, Hand of Recking, popping Divine Shield and cancelling it immediately to drop the stack. I’ve seen Festergut dropped in 10man before the second tank switch, and an additional dps would facilitate that. Not sure about 25man with the crazy dps requirements needed to kill him there before a second tank switch.
best mobs to level weapon skill on
I’ve been trying for weeks to get my 400th point in Unarmed for the achievement, but to no avail. I’ve been just putting up Seal of Light and afking while punching those giant elite skeletons. I suppose it would be easier to try those unkillable ogres in Dire Maul… but, meh, Feralas is so far away.
conviction or socomm
If you’re choosing one over the other I’d say SoComm. That seal has been pretty handy for snap aggro in ICC, particularly tanking Defense on the Gunship or when Rotworms spawn on Dreamwalker. Plus makes the daily heroic a breeze.
does judgement of justice work on rotface ooze?
JoJ works by preventing a player or mob from speeding up past run speed (ie, faster than 100%), not slow them down, like the popular misconception seems to be. Big Oozes never speed up, so JoJ doesn’t really work.
does seal of command proc off avenger shield?
No. Only single attacks.
parry haste icc
Gravity has a great post compiling which bosses parry haste in Icecrown. Short answer is only Deathwhisper and Sindragosa, which pretty much kills expertise as a survival stat if you’re tanking in ICC. Just consider it for threat now.
so sick of elemental shamans knocking me off take your face off the keyborde and watch where your going
I know! Those ele shammies are the worstest!
Armory Feed
Dire Maul doesn’t work anymore. Nor does the unkillable guy in Theramore, he’s not attackable anymore.
I was using the ents that heal themselves in crystalsong forest. Same thing, SoL, go afk for a bit.
@Rhidach
26 February 2010 at 1:35 pm #
Good idea. I was wary of afking so close to Dalaran, but punching a tree is probably as obvious as a tiny blood elf having fisticuffs with a bone giant on top of a rampart.
I got mine by going after Ambassador Hellmaw in Shadow Lab. He’s banished, and you can skirt the mob packs to get to him. I killed one of the fel guard pats just in case but it wasn’t really needed as they do not path close. The ents sounds like a good idea for when/if I go for the achievement on my horde paladin.
I am not sure if it is supposed to be like this or a bug, but my guild was able to go play with Sindragosa trash before finishing the dreamwalker encounter. We had engaged her several times on our previous raid night. This week and last week when we went back the next day the gate to the elevator and Sindrigosa’s area was open.
Tijeras’s last blog ..Protadin: http://twitpic.com/15gq2d – View from the front window. Plows are now going by, and people are out and about. Still snowing though
I’m pretty sure if you blow your HoR before you pop/remove DS you’ll be screwed. DS should give you 0 threat which you then have to build back up to be in front of everyone else.
@Rhidach
26 February 2010 at 1:55 pm #
The point of using HoR first is the fixate effect which will buy you enough time to pop/remove Divine Shield without an aggro drop. Your threat would return to normal once DS is off.
“1 tanking festergut” – I tank heroics and various easy 10man content because I’m still relatively new at the whole Prot tree (6 months vs 5yrs Holy). One night our progression 10man group took me to ICC and I didn’t fail on trash (much) so I go to be #1 Festergut tank. I hit 9 stacks, the pro tank picks him up, I run behind the boss and start going to town. After a few seconds I cast Exorcism too.
At no point had I dropped RF, Salved myself, etc. The boss spun around onto me and I managed to live for 3 or 4 seconds and was fortunate enough to avoid picking up a 10th bloat. Pro tank only had about 6 stacks when the boss died.
We only had two healers, but if I was one of them I’m sure I could have kept the nub tank alive and wiped us.
“does judgement of justice work on rotface ooze?” – Doesn’t JoJ do more damage than Light or Wisdom? Would it, then, be a better choice for the kiter?
“After a few seconds I cast Exorcism too.”
You should never do this again.
“At no point had I dropped RF, Salved myself, etc. The boss spun around onto me and I managed to live for 3 or 4 seconds and was fortunate enough to avoid picking up a 10th bloat. Pro tank only had about 6 stacks when the boss died.”
So next time you know to click off RF then yes?
Festergut and Rotface do have dead spots in their melee rotation. The Inhale is 3.5secs according to Wowhead, giving you plenty of time to bubble, taunt, and get a few hits in. Rotface’s slime spray is only 1.5secs.
I am curious if anyone can tell me if Exorcism is much of a threat or dps boost on a boss.
@Rhidach
26 February 2010 at 2:05 pm #
@Kael: This isn’t the general forums, no need to be snippy.
@Joe Ego: Exorcism is a threat loss, even with a guaranteed crit vs. undead. In the time you spent casting it you could have melee’d once or twice (depending on weapon speed) and gotten an instant attack in for much higher threat. And yeah, haha, be careful OTing Festergut with 9 stacks. I always take off Righteous Fury and self-Salv to give the other tank some breathing room.
And if you’re going for highest judgement damage, go with Seal of Righteousness.
@Joe Ego it is not and should only be used on a pull if at all. HoReck is much better for pulling. The reason you do not want to cast is that you lose all mitigation when casting. I remember it used to be an art back in tbc to time a boss swing so you could toss your shield (1.5 sec cast back then) but in my opinion definitely not worth the risk these days. Bosses hit too hard to take a chance at an unmitigated hit.
Tijeras’s last blog ..Protadin: http://twitpic.com/15gq2d – View from the front window. Plows are now going by, and people are out and about. Still snowing though
“The reason you do not want to cast is that you lose all mitigation when casting.”
I definitely understand this. I used to ride my shaman friend who occasionally plays with a “tanking” build because she still uses spells with a cast time. I am talking about OT or loldps situations such as after the tank swap on Festergut.
@AvengingWrathy
26 February 2010 at 2:28 pm #
As for single tanking festergut, Meloree has a video out where he did it on ten man on of tge first weeks, and I did it on accident a few weeks after when my off tank died early. 7k dps per person is required
“best professions for a tankadin”
While I agree with the JC part, I’ve always told people to go with Enchanting as their other profession where possible. Whilst Blacksmithing offers you two extra slots for gems you can choose to suit, for both main and off specs, Enchanters can just as easily enchant their rings, albeit for attack power or spell power only for off spec. Whilst the offspec options aren’t generally as flexible, I’ve always found that having enchanting there rather than blacksmithing has offered more potential use not just for my main, but in providing scrolls for my alts as well.
I might be alone in that fact, and the min/max guys might want a word with me about it, but it’s served me very well so far.
best mobs to level weapon skill on
You should make sure you’re beating on a mob that is level 80 or higher in order to give yourself the best chance of skilling up that last point to 400. Otherwise it may take forever.
Best mob to level weapon skill on? Go to the abyssal shelf in hellfire, there you will find fel reavers with 800k health. Buy the dalaran white weapon of the skill you wish to level, turn on seal of light, turn on auto attack, go make dinner.
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Has anyone tried SOC on a glyphed Shield to see how that works?
I find the Grove Walkers under Dal best myself. They heal themselves, and have a decent sized mana pool.
I leveled it using a Dal Stave for the weapon skill, a healing mace, a healing dagger, and a fist weapon on my shaman. I had dinged 80 got some decent gear and decided to go for it. It doesn’t take that long, but that last point feels so grindy. I even kept the logs the Walker dropped as a memento to a fallen foe.
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What an interesting way to get some questions. I’ve never looked at my google analytics search queries like that.
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