It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine

Yesterday was the last day of the old Azeroth, and being the nostalgia monster I am, I had to explore the old girl one last time.

First things first, I was covertly offered by a guildmate to be taken to a “secret place” that was going away in the Shattering. He wanted to share it with someone one last time. He also wanted to know if a rag smelled like chloroform.

We met in Tanaris and and I hopped on his bike as he rode south and then west, along the coast, towards Silithus. Around the point where Tanaris “ended” he rode up some steep hills and crossed into a sparsely textured expanse. We kept riding west and we reached a chasm and had to parachute/bike jump across. Another journey ensued and another chasm we rocket boots&chute jumped across. There he then MC’d me and used me to somehow get us both up a hill along with Intervene.

A few more minutes later, and one more crazy jump into a severely graphically bugged “Silithus” and we arrived at our destination: some crazy sand waterfalls.

I was supposed to be starting an Undying run, so we couldn’t keep going to what was apparently an uninstanced C’thun room, but just reaching this spot was reward enough for the trek we just took. It kind of encapsulated one of the things I love most about WoW, how it’s this gigantic world with so many nooks and crannies (the dancing troll village, the Ironforge airport, that lone house down the shore in EK, etc.) and so many things off the beaten track.

I can’t wait to explore the world in a whole new way in the saddle of my Argent Hippogryph.

As for the Undying run, only took a little more than an hour, and aside from a scary moment on Kel’Thuzad, it went off without a hitch. I already had the achievement, but I was happy I was able to shepherd 9 more folks to wrapping up the last shot they had at it.

Once that was done, I embarked on my nostalgia tour.

Feralas

I logged onto my hunter, my very first character, and took him and his pet wolf over to Feralas where I first tamed it. The pet he has used ever since (although, granted, I barely ever play him… he hasn’t reached the level cap since originally at 60) is Snarler, the rare black wolf near Camp Mojache.

(This is a dopey story, and I apologize for the sentimentality, but I wanted to share this tale of what this spot in Old Azeroth meant to me.)

In November of 2005, my real-life dog (a black lab/german shepherd mix named Casey) was dying. As a way to immortalize her for me, I wanted to find a comparable wolf for my only character at the time–that hunter–that would always be with him in one form or another. After searching a few sites I found an appropriate wolf, Snarler, who patrolled the woods near the Horde town in Feralas.

I spent the next week intermittently hunting Snarler, hoping to tame it, before it was too late. Finally, at the end of the week, when my patience was about to break, I spotted Snarler trotting around the ruins there. I sprung into actions and quickly began the taming spell. It was nearly complete when suddenly Snarler zipped away. Completely disappeared.

I didn’t do my research, but the mob has a spell called Fade Out which will render it invisible for a few seconds.

Not knowing that, I thought I missed my chance. Suddenly the emotion of everything, how I was about to lose my best friend, came crashing down upon me. Completely lost in the despair, I almost didn’t noticed Snarler running back to me. It had just run off briefly and aggro was bidding it return.

Composing myself, I quickly restarted the tame and soon locked it up. Snarler was mine. I named her Casey, and haven’t swapped her out for another pet since.

The real Casey passed away a week later.

Even though I don’t ever play my hunter, it’s comforting knowing that my now-long-gone best friend is still around, in one form or another. Even if Snarler (at least according to wowhead) doesn’t exist anymore thanks to the Shattering.

Orgrimmar

Back on Rhidach, I continued my tour, eventually ending in Orgrimmar. I was going to say goodbye to Warchief Thrall one last time when, once in Grommash Hold, I remembered that he had already left and Garrosh had formally taken his place. I owe no allegiance to that ill-mannered runt, so forget that act of fealty.

Thunderbluff

The last thing I needed to do before logging off for the last time was say goodbye to Cairne. I’m sure most of you didn’t read The Shattering (none of my guildmates did!) but it details his betrayal and downfall. Sorry if that’s a spoilers, but you’re not going to find out in game because Blizzard likes to hide lore detailed elsewhere, so you’ll have to hear it from me.

Cairne was betrayed and murdered and come when the servers return tonight, he’ll be dead and Baine will be the leader of the Tauren. Being the honorable old bull he is, he deserved some parting respect. The Horde will need good people like him in the dark days to come.

With that last item ticked off my list, I logged off content I had properly said my goodbyes. It’ll be weird–very weird–logging into a brave new world, so completely different from what has been a home away from home for 6 years now. I’m not sure I’m completely ready for it. But we shall see.

The shifting quest chain

Finally done! I’ve been working on the Scepter of the Shifting Sands chain for a long time, longer than I should have been. Procrastination, my eternal foe, made sure of that, which lead to some sweat-inducing down-to-the-wire scrambling to finish off everything.

I’m surprised I haven’t blogged more about this quest, I could have sworn I had. In any case, this is honestly some of the most fun I’ve ever had playing WoW. There’s something that I’ve always found fun about trotting the in-game globe, from one far flung zone to another. It’s somewhat masochistic. Obviously, doing the chain now is very, very different from doing it back at 60 when it first debuted. Nowadays, the chain isn’t hard, just time consuming. It’s also worth some laughs, with some of the better writing I’ve seen in any quests I’ve done to date.

If you somehow can bang out the chain in the next 12 hours, I strongly recommend it. It’s a damn shame this quest chain is disappearing.

Anyway, when BWL was bugged in the 4.0.3 last week, my heart sunk, because I thought I was completely screwed. Unable to get past Razorgore, I’d have no real way to farm more elementium ingots and I didn’t really want to shell out an ungodly amount of gold for six of them from the AH. I resigned myself to what seemed to be my fate.

Thankfully though, Blizzard uncharacteristically fixed the BWL bug by Thursday night and I was able to head in there Friday and farm up two more elementium ingots (giving me 6 in total). I kicked myself for my poor luck, but the fire was reignited. I was going to get this Feat of Strength. I bought four more ingots from the AH for a princely sum of around 7k gold in total, which is a ton of gold, but (as I self-rationalized) if I’m not going to spend my gold on such luxuries as FoS-immortality, what should I be spending it on?

My inner Scrooge screamed bloody murder in protest, but by then it was too late.

By that point the red shard was done, and for blue I only needed the Onyxia chapter and the elite mob farming chapters (the mats for the subsequent steps in that chain were all lined up), and the green chain still needed to be done in its entirety. So, we then went to Onyxia’s Lair and nabbed her chapter, and I called it a night content that there wasn’t much between me and the Scepter, earlier heart attacks aside.

Saturday morning, Ildara and others helped me jump through the remaining hoops. We cleared out the green shard chain, redeeming the dragon Eranikus in the process.

And then I dodged off to go farm off the last two Draconic for Dummies chapters I needed. One in Winterspring, the other in the Blasted Lands. I first went to Winterspring, only to find some warrior also farming the same mobs. Rather than be slowed down, I just went over to the Blasted Lands to try my luck there. Thankfully no farmers there, but it still took me a chunk of time to get lucky with the low drop rate. About 50 mobs later, I had my chapter.

A quick /who search showed that warrior had evacuated Winterspring so I sprung over and hit the jackpot with grabbing my last needed chapter from the first Hederine mob I took out. Score.

Back to Tanaris and turned in both The Only Prescription and The Good News and the Bad News in one go. With my Arcanite Buoy ready, I then dragged Ildara (ok, she volunteered) with me to Azshara so we could summon Maws and roll a gas tank into his mouth.

In short order I had the third and final shard I needed, the blue shard.

A hop, skip, and a jump later and I was back in Tanaris and handing over the final shard to Anachronos and receiving in return the Scepter of the Shifting Sands.

It was done, nearly six months later. Shouldn’t have taken me this long, and shouldn’t have been nearly as much of a photo finish, but I’m grateful it’s complete and I will soon have another one of my precious Feats of Strength.

Good luck to anyone still scrambling to wrap this up!

It Burns: How I Learned to Love the Fire

This is a guest post by the venerable Meloree, tankadin of Edge from Garona-US, a world top 100 progression guild and currently 26th in the US. Meloree is a widely respected poster at Maintankadin with years of tanking experience under his belt, and might be best known for trailblazing the Bleeding Edge of TPS movement that has elevated Festergut into the target dummy di tutti target dummies.

We tanks, as a rule, spend our careers locked in a brutal, no-holds-barred cage match with the Random Number Generator. We work to eliminate corner-cases, and make sure that on both short time-windows and long time-windows we can remain healable through whatever a boss dishes out. We find ways to smooth out damage intake, as well as reduce it. We seize control over our own destinies by minimizing the effects of the RNG on our personal survival. We do the same thing with threat – even when hit or expertise weren’t king threat stats, we tended to prefer those as threat stats, for smoothing out threat production and ensuring a nice consistent threat ceiling for DPS to play with.

So Vengeance is a Great Idea, Right? Right.

Vengeance – and I’m sure everyone is familiar with it by now – gives a tank additional attack power based on how much damage s/he is taking. It’s a short-term rolling average with a rapid decay. It’s intended to give tanks an additional scaling mechanism with gear, so as to make threat less of an issue in late-expansion content. It’s worth noting that in actuality, Vengeance has more of an impact in the initial tier than in final tiers – it allows Blizzard to make tank threat somewhat less overpowered in T11, so that it can scale with DPS all the way through T14. Vengeance is attempting to solve a developer problem, even while it’s being packaged as solving a player problem.

Conceptually, this is something I heartily approve of. I miss the threat game, and being able to completely ignore threat for the majority of the Wrath expansion was pretty disappointing. Even in ICC, where people were starting to report threat issues, I personally did almost all of my progression with a 245 weapon, roughly 1% hit, and 26 expertise. Very low threat stats, overall, but it was still enough to stay ahead of the DPS – without Tricks, or Misdirect, or any other hoops to jump through. Paying attention to threat stats, and balancing them against survival stats is one of the things that makes tank gearing interesting, and that was sorely lacking in Wrath. So far, I’m completely on board with Blizzard.

Where It All Goes Horribly Horribly Wrong

I’ve spent a couple of paragraphs on background, so hopefully we’re now all on the same page. Vengeance has a few major implementation issues. The first, and most important, is that while is scales positively with one survival stat – Stamina, it scales negatively with another – avoidance. It’s worth considering that the stat it scales positively with is a short time-window survival stat, and the stat it scales negatively with is a long time-window survival stat. It’s worth noting further that increasing your avoidance reduces the consistency of Vengeance. It reduces time-to-stack, it reduces average stack size, and it increases the variability of the stack size. While Vengeance may well be relatively stable for tanks in T11 content, if Wrath is any indication, it will give fits to tanks in T14 content.

Currently, raiding T10 content, Vengeance causes quite a few headaches that we’ve had to adapt to. First and foremost, avoiding damage in the first couple of seconds of an encounter will basically cause DPS to have to hold off. Sixty seconds in, avoidance streaks are a non-issue, but those first 2-3 swings are critical for the fight. On light hitting bosses, like Marrowgar, we’ve found ourselves searching for ways to take additional damage, so as to keep Vengeance stacked a little bit higher. That’s right – I stand in fire. To me, this indicates a major failure in Vengeances implementation. If it’s causing me to seek out additional (consistent) damage sources in order to give my DPS a threat ceiling that they can rely on, it’s simply not working the way it should.

Given that Vengeance’s variability matters only in the first few swings of a fight, I’m worried that on progression DPS-race bosses – bosses which traditionally are a brutal punishment on tanks, as well – we’ll find ourselves calling wipes if the first couple of swings miss. Typically, on those fights, if DPS has to back off at all, you lose. Early avoidance therefore means, you lose. This is something that we can only weakly influence through gearing – we’ll always have avoidance, and the first few hits will always be extremely variable because of that. Vengeance is RNG that we can’t realistically defeat.

I use a mod called Vengeance Status. It’s simple, lightweight, it’s just a small bar that fills up as your vengeance stacks up, and empties as it decays. It also gives a few useful numbers at the end of the fight (Max value, average value). In ICC last night, my average stack size on most bosses was in the 30% range. I’m hitcapped, very nearly expertise capped, I use a 2.6 speed 284 weapon. I find myself having to call out for DPS to be cautious on a very regular basis, simply because I’ve avoided a few hits, and my threat production feels completely dependant on getting reasonable levels of Vengeance up.

Vengeance contributes roughly 150% more AP than I have natively on gear. That translates, very roughly, to a full stack of Vengeance more than doubling my DPS/TPS output. Especially with the consolidation of raidbuffs, DPS players produce a much larger fraction of their fully-buffed DPS in 5-mans or soloing. Tanks produce a much smaller fraction of their peak TPS in those situations. Generally speaking, with low stacks of Vengeance, tanks can’t hold threat, but with full Vengeance, you leave the DPS so far behind that you might as well WoG instead of ShoR. In other words, in addition to the risks Vengeance presents in progression, it makes threat feel extremely imbalanced (in a bad way) everywhere else. Remember the good old days of taking off your pants for heroics? I miss pants.

Hope?

There is good news, though: Blizzard has some really easy options for fixing Vengeance. If you were to receive some Vengeance on avoidance – remove the negative scalar – it would serve it’s purpose very well. It should have a minimal impact on PVP, it would reduce it’s dependance on RNG, it would remove the counterintuitive reverse scaling, and it would fix the “first 3 swing” dependance. That would also, coincidentally, help tanks with the problem of outgearing old instances. Another option is for Blizzard to simply turn off Vengeance in PVP, and balance it properly for PVE – probably by removing the decay function. Another option is to give some of the benefit of Vengeance statically, reducing the RNG dependance.

Vengeance is broken, Blizzard. It’s counter-intuitive, it’s frustrating, and most importantly – it’s not fun. Fix plz.

Engineering and tanks in Cataclysm

Engineering is the profession of kings, and I am overjoyed that it continues to be a great source of tools for tanks in the next expansion. When I first picked up Engineering (well, for the second time, having dropped it previously before Wrath) I was mainly lured back by the armor tinker, and eventually tinkers gaining stats made my decision worth it in the long run. I went from crackpot to visionary. As for Cataclysm, in addition to being able to carry over the parachute and rocket boots from 80 (although more in a sec about the latter), we can upgrade the armor tinker, and add another damage reduction toy to the pile–with a shocking twist.

Something old

Mind-Amplification Disk — Unfortunately this is turning into a belt enchant in Cataclysm, so the brief renaissance it enjoyed after 4.0.1 (when it stacked with the tanking arcanum and both gave a stamina bonus) will soon be over.

Flexweave Underlay — The agility from this cloak used to be pretty incredible before every one jumped on the armor train in ICC. The stats are gone, but the parachute remains. Enjoy it in Cata.

Nitro Boosts — Well, the good news is these are still in Cataclysm, but the bad news is they possibly fail more often and share a cooldown with the Grounded Plasma Shield. However, my understanding is that they cannot fail inside a raid zone, so that first downside is moot. The latter though will require forethought. Considering these are the closest thing I have to a gap closer, I am anxious about their application in a raid setting.

Something new

Reinforced Bio-Optic Killshades — A “free” helm that potentially will last us most of T11, outside of tier sets and heroic-level gear. Very exciting to have a useful pair of goggles that won’t be replaced quickly, like the previous goggles were by Naxx25 gear.

Grounded Plasma Shield — Potentially our most promising new toy, and yet has some caveats with it. For one, (like mentioned) it shares a cooldown with the rocket boots. Moreover, the backfire from this tinker can be dangerous. One backfire I’ve seen mentioned is the device leaks Goblin Rocket Fuel on you, causing self-damage (yikes), and the other is that there’s a chance you’ll have a Plasma Misfire! which will then… attack all enemies within 40 yards and taunt them. I suppose that’s better than the original downside of the item, which was you had no avoidance while the effect was active. We’ll just have to see this in action, either way.

Quickflip Deflection Plates — No downside to this device, thankfully. Probably the best way to use it (since it has such a short cooldown) is to macro it to Crusader Strike/HotR and roll it off-cooldown to reduce damage taken over time and save healer mana. Like a secondary, less-potent Divine Protection.

Something to blow mats on for fun

Loot-a-Rang — Theoretically never have to bend over to loot an enemy again.

Goblin Barbecue — Now we provide the Fish Feasts!

And two pets, a rabbit and a fel reaver.

Plus tons of other things I don’t have the time to list. There’s something for everyone, but most importantly, some really awesome stuff for us.

Major glyphs: the whens, wheres, whys, and hows

The prodigal tank returns! This is actually a topic that someone on Twitter suggested to Anafielle, who then proceeded to dither with writing it, allowing me to steal the idea in the dead of night. Or the middle of the day.

In any case, this is a topic near and dear to my heart, because I love the way the major glyphs work. I am elated whenever situational forethought is rewarded, and the ability to adapt to specific circumstances with specific glyphs is very rewarding. Below I’ve listed instances where each major glyph has a particular use at 80. I’ll have to do this post again in a month or two for 85, but for now, this should be fairly comprehensive.

Glyph of Consecration — Great choice for an AOE tanking build, and especially useful for fights with lots of adds like Dreamwalker (rot worms!), Gunship defense, or OTing ghouls/shamblers during LK. And, of course, can award some nice threat for trash tanking. Not that dps will wait long enough for Consecrate to tick before they attempt to roll their faces all over the dps meters.

Glyph of Dazing Shield — I still swap this in for the Lich King, for an additional slowing effect on the Valks. Just in case. Because I’m paranoid. Usually best not paired with Glyph of Focused Shield, because the value is multiplied in cleaving that slowing effect. Moreover, this is a good choice for pvp I would assume.

Glyph of Divine Protection — This glyph is killer for high magic damage fights (read: Sindragosa). With the short cooldown it’s ideal to hit as many of her Frost Breaths as you can, and thus take the edge off one of the biggest attacks that she brings to the table. Other fights in ICC have a much higher proportion of physical damage taken over the course of the fight, so it makes more sense to keep the ability unglyphed and roll Divine Protection off-cooldown as a damage-taken-over-time reduction.

Glyph of Focused Shield — An absolute must have for any single target spec. Also: a must have+1 for fights like Saurfang, where there’ll be adds you do not want to hit and possibly yank from the dps. Maintanking Lich King is a similar circumstance, because you don’t want to build threat on his ghouls and make the OT’s life harder.

Glyph of Holy Wrath — Ruby Sanctum. We’re not in the expansion pack full of dragons and elementals just yet, but nonetheless, you can take this glyph for a spin in the only majority-Dragonkin raid we have currently. Great for rolling on the massive packs once the commander is separated and slept out of range of your HW.

Glyph of Salvation — When tanking Festergut, I like to (on the tank switch) self-cast Hand of Salvation, cancel Righteous Fury, and then go to town on Fester with a full stack of Gastric Bloat. Combine the temporary threat drop with the removal of my threat buff, and I don’t have to worry about catching Anafielle for the rest of the fight.

Glyph of Turn Evil — Fun toy for ICC trash if you’re so inclined. No real practical use in any boss fight, unfortunately.

Glyph of the Ascetic Crusader — Mana isn’t really much of a concern at all in single target, provided you avoid Consecration and judge when necessary, so this is really just a budgeting glyph. Probably our most boring choice. I most often use it on bosses for lack of a better choice.

Glyph of the Long Word — I’ve got nothin’. Maybe in Cata?

If you’re not carrying a stack or two of Vanishing Powder at all times, you’re not doing it right. Major glyphs are a tool–a valuable one–and one that should be exploited whenever there is a gain to be had, no matter how minute it may seem.

Dear low level paladin tanks…

I’m leveling my priest, Aneliese, with Antigen’s mage Mitogen. Aneliese has been disc since level 10. Yep, I’m leveling disc!

Since I’ve been leveling heals, you can imagine that I’ve run quite a few dungeons on my way from 1 to roughly 50. I do a lot of healing. I see a lot of tanks.

And, my pink comrades, I am ashamed of our class. I have judged the tanks presented to me, as a priest, and I find myself preferring warriors.

I know. It’s that bad.

Dear Low Level Pallies: Stop Sucking.

It is definitely possible to tank well as a Paladin at low levels. Roughly half the paladin tanks I’ve healed have been fantastic. They know the game; they use their Avenger’s Shield right; and they pull intelligently. Some of them even blow their Holy Power on Word of Glory.

Yet these good ones are a rare, rare breed.

Low level pallies. Let’s have a chat. Gather ’round and listen to Mommy Anafielle. I will smite you down if you keep screwing up and giving our very intelligent and very skillful a community a bad name.

Let’s talk about some basics….

DON’T queue as a tank without a Protection spec.

You might still be able to get away with tanking in ret at the low levels. Maybe. However, every excellent low level pally tank I’ve healed has been prot without exception. Either level as prot, or go get dual spec and keep some prot gear in your bags.

Dual spec is only 100 gold. Get it.

“I don’t have enough money.” Well, being a hybrid takes commitment, my friend. If you want to be a tank, you need a prot spec. If you can’t afford a prot spec, you can’t be a tank.

DON’T run around the room and gather everything up.

JUST DON’T DO THIS. EVER. RESIST THE URGE.

Don’t run around the goddamn room like an idiot. Because I am your healer. I will pre-bubble you, but that only goes so far. If you run around trailing a hundred mobs like the Jonas Brothers at a concert full of teenage girls, the moment I rebubble your half-dead ass, those teenage girls will realize that I am freakin’ Justin Bieber and TURN AROUND AMG THERE HE IS HOLY SHIT HERES A SHARPIE PLEASE SIGN MY TRAINING BRA TAKE A PICTURE AMGGGGGGGG BEST DAY OF MY LYFEEEEEEEEEEEE.

And then I’m dead.

Don’t make me Justin Bieber.

Really. Don’t do it.

I know that level 80 tanks can sometimes appear to pull very messily, especially when we outgear things.

You are not level 80. This is not the pre Marrogar trash in ICC. You are not a badass heroic geared raid tank with six personal healers, a low cooldown Consecrate, and the old school Seal of Cleave. This is Maraudon, post-4.0, and you are just some idiot who thinks that running close to mobs will stick them to you like glue.

There is absolutely no good reason to ever do this. It’s not like the mobs will die more effectively. Half the DPS don’t even have AE abilities yet. You are only making the whole dungeon slower! We’re all chasing after you, I’m burning through my mana pool healing everyone frantically, you aren’t holding threat on jack shit….. It’s just a mess, and a completely pointless one.

Stop being stupid.

DON’T confuse body pulling with actual threat.

Let’s talk about threat, and mobs. Mobs are fickle creatures.

They are pretty easy to snag. All you need to do is show your face, and they’ll chase you. Oh, they’ll chase you! It’s love at first sight – you’re at the top of their Omen – and everything is great. You are a hot little number, you sexy blood elf you, and they want a piece of that plate clad ass. You didn’t even have to get them flowers, and they are totally drooling all over you. It’s probably the hair.

But let me tell you a secret. It’s all a lie. They aren’t really all that attracted to you. Yours was just the first face they saw.

Once I start healing and other the other three people here start DPSing, they will drop you like you were nothing to them, nothing at all, and get way more interested in your more active friends. If you want to keep all those mobs, you actually have to hit them. Love is pain.

Actually, I’m a little bit concerned about where this analogy is going. Let’s drop it and move along.

My point is, you need to deal damage to mobs to keep them on you. A harsh but true fact. Welcome to the world of tanking.

Pro Tip: dropping a Consecrate on the ground and running through it doesn’t count.

It doesn’t do shit. It probably won’t tick on half of them. You need to sit them in a Consecrate and keep them there.

“Alright, ‘Anafielle’,” You might say, scornfully. “Quit telling me I’m a noob. Be useful. How the heck do I hold threat on a whole lot of mobs?”

There’s an easy answer.

Pull intelligently.

Fact of Life: The best way to hold threat on a lot of mobs is to pull them right in the first place.

I have no idea what spells you get now with 4.0, but it seems like you’ve got most of the really important ones. Here’s how I’d pull, if I was a young and pre-60 paladin tank.

Observe the area in front of you. Usually, you’ll target the mob you want the DPS to kill first. Run your ass in there. Now let’s all pause to mourn Prot’s present lack of Pursuit of Justice. I know. I miss it too. Alright, the moment of silence is over. Pull.

Hit your target with Avenger’s Shield, or Judgement and then Avenger’s Shield. The mobs run to you; you run to them; it’s like your meeting was meant to happen! When you stop, make sure they’re all in front of you. You’re not hitting jack shit with Hammer of the Righteous if your targets are not in front of you. You aren’t blocking if your targets aren’t in front of you. Backpedal accordingly.

Use Hammer of the Righteous. Use Avenger’s Shield. Sit your mobs in a Consecrate if it’s worth your mana to drop one. Switch targets if the DPS are being idiots and you want to make sure you’ve got threat on everything, but honestly, things in dungeons die in seconds. If you have pulled correctly, you will hold your mobs without too much trouble.

I’m not saying, don’t chain pull… I’m just saying, don’t pull like an idiot!

One group is OK. Two groups is OK. Pull a group and carefully taunt a pat over. That’s all fine.

Chain pulling is ok! The mobs are almost dead? No problem, I like a fast dungeon. While I feel like it’s good tank etiquette to remain in place until everything’s dead, I don’t really mind if you move away to pull the next group while the DPS finishes off the last mob.

They key is to control what you tank.

Good tanking is about control.

You want to pull as many mobs as you can control. If that’s just one group, that’s just one group. If that’s two or three, that’s two or three.

Pull what you can control, finish them off, and move along.

Don’t let anyone rush you, and don’t rush yourself.

So…. low level pallies… please stop being dumb!

Hearts, stars, and rainbows,

Anafielle

Twitter Is A Useful Tool

Long, long ago, I was** an internet snob.

“Twitter? Are you kidding me?” I’d scoff. “Are you serious? Twitter is like the new home for AIMspeak and livejournalling emo children. Its popularity is a sign of how selfish and self centered our fragile generation has become. People think their two thousand followers totally care when you got coffee this morning or whether your work day sucks. It just plays into your belief that the world cares about your most mundane thoughts about nothing in particular…”

I’m a little bit elitist.

The character limit is the worst part. First of all, it encourages poor typing. And secondly… what the hell can you say in 140 characters?

Turns out you can say one hell of a lot.

** Side note: This does not mean that I have ceased to be an internet snob…

Look, I Got Addicted By Accident! Really!

I blame wow blogs. Months ago, I noticed that all my favorite wow bloggers had twitter feeds. Hmm. They were saying stuff I wanted to respond to. So I signed up for Twitter.

I can’t really watch a conversation without chiming in. So I started talking. A lot. Then I started following everyone that bloggers recommended on Follow Fridays, chiming into more conversations, following more useful people …

Unsurprisingly, I’m now a complete twitter addict. I too tweet about my coffee in the morning and how much work sucks. I gleefully typo things, misspell them, and mangle the english language in my unending quest to communicate the most mundane shit to the unfortunate souls who have chosen to follow me.

Of course, I also tweet about WoW a lot. Especially on raid nights.

Wow, Raiding, and Tweeting

If I’m having trouble with something – or if the guild is arguing about something – I like to tab out and throw a question at twitter.

This is the beauty of WoW Twitter. Ask a question, and you’ll get responses from a ton of people from all fields of play in the game. Casual players, levelers, RP addicts and writers, altoholics with ten 80s, PVP bloggers… and, of course, all manner of raider from the casual pug champion to raiders from world ranked guilds who’ve had H LK on farm for months.

It’s like forums – but faster!

Don’t Tell My Raid, But This Suggestion Came From Twitter

Take Wednesday night for an example.

Rhidach is gone. Which means, we hit a ridiculous fight – Heroic Lich King – for the first time on 25 without our raid leader and main tank. I had NO 25 experience on this fight, and I was in that sticky “Not really the raid leader, but the main tank, and the one putting the strategy together” position (what the hell? Was I raid leading? I don’t even know).

Needless to say, I forgot some shit.

Guess who forgot that druids (post-4.0) could Soothe the enrages off the Shamblers in phase 1? Guess who forgot that Shamblers do a second, untranq-able enrage at 20% health? Yeah.

Thank you, twitter. All I did was tab out to QQ that we couldn’t keep our shambler tank alive, and in response I got tons of useful suggestions. Mainly from FeistTheRogue, someone every single raider on twitter needs to follow, like, right now.

My point: don’t laugh when I link twitter or mention it in the course of my raiding posts. It’s a great tool! If you try it, you might find you like it.

Now, BRB. I need to tweet about how much work sucks again.

Enveloping Shadows on Twitter

Follow Friday, for the uninitiated, is a twitter phenomenon where you list people you recommend your followers to follow. You mark it with #FF. I personally think you should be following my guild:

• Rhidach (@Rhidach)
• Anafielle (@Anafielle)
• Antigen (@hazmacewillraid) – ret paladin, occasional third tank
• Ildara (@IldaraTheDruid) – tree druid
• Ichioso (@OneOfManyIchi) – boomkin
• Katmandu (@katmandu) – priest
• Palehoof (@Palehoof) – hunter, Blizzard forums MVP

Antigen has a ret paladin blog at Haz Mace Will Raid, and the illustrious Palehoof has begun to post over at Blizz Planet.

Happy Friday, everyone!

Seal of Truth has not been nerfed

The Seal of Truth tooltip changed in a recent beta build. It appeared to be heavily nerfed – about 25% less damage – which sparked some worry in our community. Not like we are a volatile, passionate bunch or anything.

Good news, everyone:

The most recent Seal of Truth change was just a tooltip correction. The numbers did not go down.

We did nerf Censure and raise Exorcism in a previous build, but that should not be new information.

Source: Ghostcrawler, yesterday in this hilarious thread.

We can all breathe a sigh of relief.

Icecrown Citadel Is STILL Buggy

Yesterday’s post and last night’s raid got me thinking. We’ve had some pretty spectacular bugs in ICC since the patch.

I’m not talking about the week after 4.0 – that was madness, absolute madness. This is not the week after a patch. It’s been a long time. We’d expect most of the bugs to be worked out, right? Well…. not exactly.

Here’s a little list just from last night’s raid.

Rezzing Alive

When you release after a wipe, we’ve been spawning in the graveyard alive with 1 HP.

We are a PVP server. I absolutely love that my server is PVP, and I much prefer PVP servers. But that makes this bug a serious pain in the ass. Mages just spam Arcane Blast and wipe out half a raid rezzing and mounting. It slows down our wipe recovery by a minute or two each time. Yes, there’s a ledge you can jump down and rez on. The allies found it. They kill you there, too.

I hate this one. I hate this one so, so much.

Nothing against the lesser faction, of course. I’m not blaming you allies. I’m sure my Horde bretheren kill you just as often, if not more often. The rez alive bug, or mechanic, is at fault. It’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen. Blizz, if you really want to force us to PVP in the graveyard between wipes, we should at least rez with more than 1 HP.

Side Note: Amusing Myself At Your Expense

There are silver linings. I once saw an Ally DK die on the way back into ICC. He flew into the front hall and let his lag dismount him… and died from the fall damage. From about 5 feet up.

I laughed for a good long time.

Gunship Never Ends

Last night, Lootship went without issue. (Except the part where they pulled it without me, but let’s not talk about that.) Then it ended, we enjoyed our free heroic loots, ran over to Saurfang…. and we were still in combat. We couldn’t get out.

Then our healers started getting their asses kicked. Something was hitting them from afar. Apparently – even though the encounter was over – the enemy gunners were enraged and decided to whoop us… out of nowhere!

We eventually had to all jump off the edge to reset it. Mass suicide: the only solution.

Rotface

We pulled the boss by accident while the Raid Leader was still handing out loot in Festergut’s room. My favorite boomkin fatfingered his scroll wheel on a menu, and Wrath’d the boss. By reflex, I taunted, although half the raid sprinted out the door. We decided to keep killing him although at least 10 were locked out. The 15 of us in there would have killed him, too… but Rotface mysteriously disappeared at 18%. He must have targeted someone outside.

This wasn’t a huge problem – we’d just pull again – but the encounter wasn’t over. Oozes and puddles kept spawning outside the door… although Rotface had reset inside his room! Ugh. Someone finally reset the whole encounter by pulling and dying.

Then someone did it again. Someone at range pulled the boss with half the raid running back. Once again, oozes spawned all over the instance, and again, someone had to suicide at the boss once he’d respawned yet again to reset the whole thing.

I don’t know why we had so much trouble with encounters resetting last night.

Sindragosa Pulled Into The Room

Not really a bug, I know! This is your occasional punishment for attempting to reset Sindragosa by running away. :) I’m including it only because I have epic screenshots!

Tee hee. Sindy, u mad bro?

If you’re having trouble with this, let me give you some hints. It really helps if your whole raid comes down to the floor (no one waits up by the door) and then runs together, as a group, out of the room. If you pull the trash dragon up the stairs, you’re a lot more likely to bug her out. I promise, your whole raid can get out the door even if you kill the dragons where they spawn.

Comments Welcome

Seriously. Blizz owes us all some repair gold to make up for all these bug-resetting suicides we’ve had to pull lately.

So… anyone else have a good one? What is your favorite raiding bug?

Sindragosa’s Frost Breath Post-4.0

I hope you all manage to put up with me for another week, because Rhidach’s on vacation yet again. Geez, does that guy ever raid?

Let’s talk about Sindragosa.

This fight has been massively buggy since 4.0. We’ve had some crazy issues- our first night raiding post-4.0, the 30% buff disappeared on us entirely. I’ve heard reports of tanks getting frost tombed, although we’ve never seen this, and supposedly it was hotfixed. Mystic Buffet debuff durations seem to be a few seconds longer than they should be in phase 3, which makes All You Can Eat a slightly larger pain in the ass than before. But doable.

The biggest bug, in my opinion, doesn’t seem to be a bug at all. I suspect the devs stealth buffed her breath. It’s a bit stinkier now.

Frost Breath Blues

Frost Breath is both the frontal cone attack and the 90 second attack and movement speed debuff that stacks on your main tank. In a pre-4.0 world, the debuff was just a very minor annoyance and fell off the MT by the end of each air phase. Now, it doesn’t. It appears to last about 20 seconds longer than each air phase.

I’ve seen a bunch of different explanations for why this is happening, ranging from “the debuff was always meant to act this way” to “the debuff is bugged and counting down one stack at a time” to “Paladins used to get 30% snare reduction from Toughness and they don’t anymore.” I don’t really care why it’s happening. The point is, if your MT just keeps stacking that thing up until phase 3, you’re pretty screwed.

The solution is to tank swap.

Tank Swapping Side Notes

Swap on every air phase. We also swap right as Phase 3 pops so she starts Phase 3 with an undebuffed tank.

For the swap, I highly recommend taunting the dragon before she flies into the air – instead of waiting for her to land after the air phase. Your post air phase pickup will be much cleaner.

Call for Hands of Freedom liberally. Our raid has 7 pallies. I use my own all the time on this fight, but I really like to get other people to pop theirs on me and then chain mine on the end. The pallies in our raid are already used to HoFing the tanks all the time and rarely do I even need to ask.

Use your Rocket Boots. Oh, wait… not everyone is gifted with the most glorious profession in the world, Engineering. I am so glad I powerleveled Engineering a few weeks ago. I dearly love that speed boost.

Bad Breath Won’t Stop Us

We’ve done both heroic Sindy 25 and All You Can Eat since the patch without much trouble. For All You Can Eat, the first tank swap is still a bit sticky, and we ended up holding DPS on the dragon to transition her right after an air phase. If you transition her at the “end” of a ground phase, one of the tanks will have 2 stacks of the movement debuff. If you transition her right “after” an air phase, it works much better- one tank is clear and the other is almost clear.

I don’t mind tank swapping at all. Actually, I like it better! Pre-4.0, this encounter really sucked for the off tank. It was my least favorite fight to OT (with the possible exception of being third tank on Putricide).

I’ve seen people argue that this encounter was originally designed to require two tanks the whole time. If that is true, I sort of wish it had been like this from the start.