Trying to keep the faith

If you’ve been following me on twitter (and hell, even here on the blog) I’ve been pretty down about my guild lately as it pertains to raiding. There’s been a few issues of nascent drama in addition to some very annoying attendance issues that have nearly cost us the ability to raid for the last two weeks. The problem isn’t so much we don’t have people, it’s that the people we do have are being fickle about showing up or have had scheduling issues (I myself had to miss the raid Wednesday because of a scheduling issue).

In one sense, the problem could be solved with recruiting, but the problem remains that there are capable people in guild, and we just need them to show up. I guess our first step is to work on getting those people to log in and get some of the lesser geared people into raids. We’re probably going to change the raid schedule from three three-hour days to two four-hour days, so we don’t have a stretch of raid nights that may be untenable for some folks. We’ll see how that goes.

In the meantime I’m going to console myself with the knowledge that the core of the guild is strong, and made up of awesome people. Half of our ICC raid core weren’t even in guild during Naxx, so if we eventually have to build up again, it’s not the end of the world.

Some funny things form guild chat last night, so I may take comfort in the hilarity of the people I am blessed to raid with.

Slyke when he was asked for his gearscore when trying to get into a ToGC-10 pug:

And Zilga (a healer) from the attempts we put in on Dreamwalker last night:

Speaking of Dreamwalker …

Interesting fight. We tried it for the two hours or so we could and mostly got the hang of the adds, but we need to work on them a bit more. I really can’t offer any observations other than the Blazing Skeletons hurt like a mother, and need to die asap, and dps really needs to be on the ball with target switches. The fight reminds me a lot of when we were first trying Deathwhisper and the adds seemed unmanageable. Once we figure out what to kill when and how, it’ll go a lot smoother.

Ultimately though I regret trying Dreamwalker last night. We should have built on our experience with Putricide or Blood Queen rather than splitting our progression three ways.

Whack goes the nerf bat

Just to revisit this topic again briefly–I’m going to reiterate my lack of surprised that we were nerfed. I saw this coming earlier this week, the warning signs were all there.

The one thing that bothers me about the nerf (other than how it was just sprung on us in the middle of the night) is that Blizzard thinks that other tanks are “fine”. Specifically, warriors. Warriors right now are at the bottom of the heap across most, if not all metrics, and have very little to show for it. I don’t understand Blizz’s mentality that if a tank can tank a boss then they are fine. Tank survival should be the same across all four classes, much like how pure dps classes are more or less balanced against other pure dpsers.

The situation is now that the tank classes are a lot more balanced than they were a week ago, but warriors are still coming up short. They need some serious loving.

I can’t imagine there will be anymore Paladin nerfs in the near future, so don’t worry that we’re in the crosshairs or something. If any other changes are to be made they might involve making Seal of Command require a two-hander so Prot can’t use it anymore (thus, sadly, killing heroics spec). Beyond that… I just can’t see it.

But then again, I can’t imagine why Blizzard would be so willfully blind to how behind Warriors are in EH, dps, etc. So, who knows?

Tankadin HP hotfix nerfed

No details yet, other than:

It’s an intentional change. Sorry that the fix went in before the announcement. The announcement should be up soon with more details.

And yes folks, this is justified, please don’t freak out. Probably a needed reduction in our superior stamina scaling. It sucks how they sprung this on us, but in the end it was justified. They were never going to buff other tanks to our level, this nerf was inevitable.

Last request: please don’t go forth and QQ, let’s be the bigger tank about this.

Update: Looks like Sacred Duty went from 8% stamina increase to 4%.

Tuesdays are for buggy raids

I think now that the Lich King is vulnerable he must be attempting to slow down raids with buggy boss encounters. How else can I explain the painful nonsense we kept running into last night?

First of all, thanks to Patch Day a swath of people were either late or having huge performance issues. Lag was also a major issue for some, though we were thankfully spared the dreaded Gunship lag. Nonetheless, all these little nibbling bites that were slowing people down were invariably cutting into raid performance.

And then there was the brand new buggified version of Saurfang we ran into last night. Usually we don’t see the first Mark until sub-50%, last night we had it at around 70% or so, and a second one going out before 60%. We assumed maybe someone was having issues kiting or people were standing too close together, but instead it just seemed like his Blood Power generation rate was off the charts.

We reset the fight by fleeing to the boat, but then the second time we had the same BP generation issues. We just decided to go with the flow and ended up killing Saurfang with something like six Marks up, no deaths. It wasn’t ultimately an issue for us, but this bug can probably prove to be a roadblock for others. Hopefully they’ll fix it soon.

After Saurfang we were already pushing against the clock and just went to cement our Blood Council kill last week with an equally clean kill. No luck on our part though, because in addition to melee dps assuming being told to scatter when Empowered Shock Vortex was being cast actually meant clump with other melee and get one shot, we had to deal the Kinetic Bombs deciding to randomly explode in midair.

We probably had a few wipes caused by bombs going off and killing too many people, especially ranged dps, which was tight last night and led to more Bombs hitting the ground and exploding. We kept getting ground up in the negative feedback loop.

Based on some cursory research I did it sounds like putting dots on the Bombs was making them explode as they were preparing to despawn. Does that make sense? Anyone have any insight into this?

Finally at around 15 minutes before raid end we dropped Blood Council after eeking out the kill with half the raid dead.

Overall not the best raid night, by far. Still, as long as attendance holds all week we can finally get some progress done on a wing boss. That’s all I ask, dammit.

When to use Divine Sacrifice in ICC

Since the 3.3 changes to Divine Sacrifice, the spell has become a much bigger part of my arsenal than it was pre-change. With a two minute cooldown and no need to take, DivSac should become one of your most oft-used spells in Icecrown as you work your way through Arthas’ minions.

But wait, doesn’t DivSac do damage to me?

Yes and no. We’re not really concerned with Divine Sacrifice, per se, but more with the Divine Guardian effect that kicks in when DivSac is activated. If you make a quick cancelaura macro from DivSac like so:

#showtooltip Divine Sacrifice
/cancelaura Divine Sacrifice
/cast Divine Sacrifice

… and then hit it twice in rapid succession you’ll turn on DivSac, then off (cancelling any damage), but Divine Guardian will stick and the whole raid will benefit from the 20% damage reduction effect.

Best times to pop DivSac in Icecrown

This list may or may not just turn into a list of high raid damage moments in ICC boss fights–though, six of one, half dozen of the other, I suppose. In any case, I’ll update this list when I see more of the boss fights.

Marrowgar

• During a bonestorm
• When two or more healers get spiked

Lady Deathwhisper

• When the exploding ghosts spawn

Deathbringer Saurfang

• When tanking DBS during the sub-30% frenzy period. Damage you take it carried across to anyone with a Mark, so you want to minimize how much damage you–and they–take.

Stinky

• Right after a decimate so the next pulse of his aura doesn’t hurt as much

Festergut

• When Festergut is casting his exhale to do the massive raid-wide damage. Helps if anyone missed an inoculation.

Rotface

• During an ooze explosion, in case rockets hit anyone

Professor Putricide

• Right before a green slime reaches its target and knocks everyone into the air. Proper stacking minimizes damage, but applying the Divine Guardian effect on top of that can’t hurt.

Blood Council

• If using a ranged tank, during their turn, while Keleseth is casting an Empowered Shadow Lance
• If an Empowered Conjured Flame looks like it’s getting too close to too many ranged at once

Blood Queen Lana’thiel

• When she goes up in the air and starts casting bloodbolts at people

When used correctly, and at the most optimal times, Divine Sacrifice/Guardian can give your healers some much needed breathing room. Depending on the moment, DivSac can even help prevent wipes. Use it like the dead vote in Chicago, early and often.

Caught up

Wednesday last week may have sucked, but on the bright side it gave us a jump start on our 10man group and allowed us to go into ICC-10 last night with all but the two wings bosses and Blood Council down.

First things first, we hit up Blood Council and despite a dopey wipe (hunter pulled aggro on Keleseth, died, his orb hit the ground, everyone died in the ensuing chaos) the second shot was a quick and clean kill. Netted the orb achievement again, because nothing makes that fight easier than siccing a pet on an orb.

We then bounded up the ramp to the first trash pull before the Blood Queen. Bad things ensued. First we tried a straight pull but it went south very quickly. Second time we tried a little more CC but I got gibbed before we all got in position (I hatehatehate the Tactician). Third time we got a clean pull but the other tank and I soon died, leaving two healers and two dps up with about three mobs. They then proceeded to somehow kill all the mobs with coordinated CC while us losers ran back in a classic cavalry maneuver. By the time we heroically returned, the dps had mopped them all up. Well played.

Once we were done with the trash pull from hell we dispatched the four guys at the top of the ramp and tried to figure out how we were going to handle Blood Queen. After kind of rambling off everything I remembered reading about the fight, we all basically agreed we weren’t going to do a good attempt until we say the fight ourselves. So, we pulled and had a hilariously disastrous wipe, though we ended up seeing the different aspects of the fight: the brain link, the swarming shadows, the vampire bite, etc.

Going back we retooled the strategy a bit (ok, actually formed a strategy) and pulled again. This time we lost a few people early on to some silliness but kept going to get more practice. Had her down to ~60% that time.

The third attempt we had more a plan going and new what to look for. We also had one of the dps (actually, a druid healer going boom for the raid) switch to heals. Seems counterproductive for a dps race fight, but the dps we had was good and we needed the breathing room that a third healer would provide. The third attempt was awesome and despite losing someone early in the fight (who was then brezzed) and a rogue (Falowin, of course) at around 40% we managed to kill her right at the exact second when she enraged and murdered both me and the offtank.

So, wow, our first wing boss down. I was expecting that fight to be a lot harder.

Exuberant after dethroning the Blood Queen, we then bounced back to the Plague Wing to bring a fiery vengeance down upon Professor Putricide. Our very first attempt and it was clear that we had built upon the knowledge we gain from previous attempts. And, also, the dps we had was nuts. We hit phase 2 after the first green slime was dead. We pushed it to phase 3, but we had an orange slime up at the same time, and a little too many puddles on the ground. Wiped in the ensuing chaos.

Still, great first showing! We were all pumped. The next try we got it again to phase 3 but I screwed up the tank switch and kept accidentally outthreating and pulling off Nordic, the warrior tank, when he would taunt it off me. We wiped because I had 5 stacks and he had 2. /facepalm

I clearly wasn’t giving him enough time to build rage after he was crammed in the Abom the entire time. So third attempt I swore I wasn’t going to wipe the raid that time and we had similar results. Quick switch to phase 2, a hop, skip, and a jump to phase 3, and then I’d back off when not tanking Putricide so as not to pull threat. We lasted a lot longer and finally downed the bastard about 5 stacks on me and 4 on Nordic. Down to the wire, for sure.

But it was a kill nonetheless! Very exciting, two wing bosses for the first time.

I’m trying to think of any tips for Putricide that I can impart (I surely can’t offer anything for BQL, haven’t done that fight enough) and the main thing I can emphasize is the fight revolves around how quickly you kill and how well you control the green/orange slimes. If you can down each before they reach their victim that’s more time you have on Putricide. And, furthermore, it’s so very key to make sure everyone stays as far back as possible from where the slimes spawn (except for hunters, who can feign off a link) so there’s a maximum distance between add and target.

Once you get down to phase 3, it’s all about the dps and the tanks not screwing up their switches (ahem). Tensest part of the fight, but the easiest as well if everyone is alive and everyone is doing their job.

The best part of last night is for sure the realization that the group we had last night could easily kill the Lich King. Well, maybe not easily, but with some practice. We have the capability, now we just need the opportunity.

And now to parlay this knowledge into the 25man so we can kill a wing boss there…

Raiding redemption

This week has been quite the rollercoaster ride. Tuesday was probably our best raid night yet, killing up to Saurfang and then Festergut and Rotface, all in the span of about two and a half hours. And then putting some shots in on Blood Council before calling it at the usual time. We were all pumped to get the farm stuff done in one night and have the next two for some honest-to-goodness progression. Nothing could stop us now.

And then nobody showed up on Wednesday.

Actually. not entirely true. About twenty regular raiders showed up Wed, and we couldn’t scrape together enough fillers to make a full raid. So, we called it after standing around while trying to work everything out. We broke into 10mans instead and farmed badges/killed some bosses/destressed a little.

Last night I was getting worried that the poor attendance monster would rear his ugly head. On top of a few other absences, Demo couldn’t make it due to some madlibesque family entanglement–though, on the bright side, this did spawn a new guild meme of using “wife’s [familial relation]‘s [familial relation]‘s [asian nationality] [random relation]‘s [event]” as a reason for not being able to make raids. I predict great things for that joke.

So I threw together the raid and Cendra got the dkp in order and we all headed in. The raid was composed of 22 regulars and 3 fillers, and generally wasted bad looking. Not our Tuesday night prime, but you can’t win them all.

We immediately head for the Blood Wing and start going through the trash, wherein I successfully demonstrated my model of Sap Tanking (ie. tanking both the Tacticians while being stunlocked for the duration of the pull).

On the Council itself I gave a (not so) brief rundown of the fight and how it goes for the people who didn’t see it last week or Tuesday. I was tanking Valanar on the stage, Purraj the Druid had Taldaram over to the right, and Slyke the Shadow Priest would ranged tank Keleseth.

Our first pull went, as you’d expect, chaotically. Keleseth was the second Prince and he quickly dispatched poor Slyke who didn’t have enough dark nuclei. One of the raiders, who despite being a nice guy has a major tendency to insist on raid changes–loudly–in vent, suggested vociferously that Slyke couldn’t cut it and we needed a warrior tank on Keleseth. Considering that was the first try of the night, I wasn’t prepared to shift strategy, so that avenue of discussion was cut off and we buckled down to work on the strategy at hand.

The second pull went a lot more smoothly and when it came Slyke’s turn to tank and empowered Prince he did a fantastic job and easily survived his phase. Unfortunately the melee had to muddle it up by getting blown up by an empowered shock vortex.

Third try we had an Empowered Conjured Flame take out a huge chunk of range that was too close together. On that attempt though we got them to ~60%. Progress was obviously being made. I played the optimist for the crowd, told everyone they were doing fantastic (which they were), and re-emphasized positioning to minimize Conjured Flame damage.

Fourth try we had another mishap with the Empowered Shock Vortex, but still got them down to 37%. We were definitely getting there!

Fifth try everything seemed to click. Melee switched fast, hunters were on the ball (literally) getting pets onto the Kinetic Bombs. No one died to ESV, no one died to ECF, and when we were on Valanar with 5% of his health to go I suddenly realized we were about to score the kill. At about 1% the Invocation of Blood jumped to Taldaram though, and Purraj ended up finishing him off, I think.

Anyway, we got the kill and an achievement to boot!

After the Council we went to work on Putricide a bit since we were somewhat familiar with that fight (as opposed to going in blind on the Queen). Our best attempt was something like 65% out of the six attempts we did, so not awesome, but we’ll get there.

I just need people to actually show up, dammit.

There are dramaz on the internet

There has been an absolutely bile-inducing amount of crap directed at Paladin tanks in recent weeks. It’s gotten to the point where it’s nearly impossible to visit the official tanking forums, let alone the general forums, for fear of being swept away by a tide of QQ and the tantrums of the inconsolable whiners that populate that den of scum and villainy.

The topic du jour is once again tankadin hate, which was on the decline for a while after so many got it out of their system following the debut of Ardent Defender back in the days of Ulduar. At right about the time that DKs were smacked down, Paladins were propped up and for the first time in our long tanking careers we became something akin to the Second Coming. Or something like that. So I’m told.

We also got a nice fat target painted on our backs to go along with AD.

And now as part of the current flow of anti-Paladin sentiment the same old daggers are being drawn, dull as they are. Paladin tanking is so simplistic that only idiots play them. Paladin tanking is easy mode. Paladin tanking requires no skill. So on and so forth.

I mean, it’s obvious that these indictments are derived by the groupthink rage and envy at what is perceived as the top dog tank. Personally, I question how Druids get away unscathed with an even simpler rotation and far greater effective health, but I suppose that neither here not there. I don’t think there’s any merit to channeling dissatisfaction with your class into a hateful broadside against people that are, generally, on the same team. So to speak.

So then these footsoldiers of the aggrieved masses then fan out across the forums and abroad and denigrate us as degenerate facerollers. As evidence they cite how easy it is for us to aoe tank, how our rotation could be (wrongly) mapped to two buttons, and how our automatic second “cooldown” is a crime against nature. They then go roll Paladin alts (because, truly, the world needs more FotMers) and only reinforce their bigotry with the knowledge that a class–whose tanking arsenal was foundationally designed in 2.0 around reflective and area of effect damage–excels at holding more than one mob at a time.

… Holy hell, how did this get past the Sam Spades of the official forums for so long?!

And then of course one of these little pukes comes to this blog and regurgitates the same, tired claptrap that we’re subjected to day in and day out, spices it up with the mellifluousness of a subliterate mouth-breather, and then has the gall to top it off with a winking emoticon, like that somehow turns his bilious dribble into some biting riposte.

Does it bother me, to have to deal with this nonsense from anonymous troll and guildmate alike? Yeah, it does. For once we’re at the top of the heap, legitimately or not, and dammit that cannot stand. Pitchforks in hand, the wailing masses call for our heads, like we personally were the ones that decided that Paladins were due their time in the sun.

Do we need to be balanced against other tanks? Self-evidently, yes. Do we need this garbage hurled at us on a daily basis? No.

I’m sick of it. You seething wretches need to grow the hell up.

t10 buffs try hard, still don’t cross finish line

Zarhym hit the tank forums to give a sneak peak at the updated iLevel 251 tier 10 gloves and chest piece. While the effort they put into making the two pieces more attractive are appreciated, they don’t quite do the job. In terms of an all around survivability set you’ll still want the offset pieces. Let’s look at everything more indepth.

(Sidenote: I’m extrapolating what the armor on the 264 versions of the t10 gloves/chest will look like based on the updated 251 versions. Making an educated guess on my part for the purposes of a cleaner comparison between two 264 items.)

SANCTIFIED LIGHTSWORN CHESTGUARD
~3750 Armor
+162 Strength
+219 Stamina
Red Socket
Blue Socket
Socket Bonus: +9 Stamina
Item Level 264
Equip: Increases your dodge rating by 69 (1.75% @ L80).
Equip: Increases your parry rating by 85 (1.73% @ L80).

vs.

CATACLYSMIC CHESTGUARD
3817 Armor
+123 Strength
+207 Stamina
Yellow Socket
Blue Socket
Red Socket
Socket Bonus: +12 Stamina
Requires Level 80
Item Level 264
Equip: Increases defense rating by 108 (21.96 @ L80).
Equip: Increases your expertise rating by 82 (10 @ L80).

So, for the chest slot we’re looking at the offset have potentially 18 more stamina, around 70 more armor and exactly how much expertise you’d need to be softcapped on top of your talents. Whereas, the tier chest has itemization wasted on strength but more avoidance–though a severe defense deficit, which, coupled with the Pillars of Might, might be an issue. It seems in this case, the Cataclysmic Chestguard is a better all around piece as well as more EH.

SANCTIFIED LIGHTSWORN HANDGUARDS
~2550 Armor
+92 Strength
+169 Stamina
Yellow Socket
Socket Bonus: +6 Stamina
Item Level 264
Equip: Increases defense rating by 80 (16.27 @ L80).
Equip: Improves hit rating by 61 (1.86% @ L80).

vs.

GAUNTLETS OF THE KRAKEN
2658 Armor
+120 Strength
+157 Stamina
Red Socket
Yellow Socket
Socket Bonus: +9 Stamina
Item Level 264

Equip: Increases defense rating by 63.
Equip: Increases your parry rating by 48

With gloves the offset piece will net you 18 more stamina potentially, along with around 100 more armor, 28 more strength, and more avoidance. The trade off being the tier gloves have more threat benefit from the hit rating, which you might find to be a precious commodity on ICC gear.

Utimately, the offset pieces were considered before a higher priority because they had better survivability stats. While the tier pieces were improved, that old conclusion still stands. I would recommend getting the Cataclysmic Chestguard and Gauntlets of the Kraken first if you’re looking to improve your effective health, time-to-live, etc. The tier pieces though do hold merit as part of a threat, farm, or avoidance set, but unfortunately those sets tend to take a back seat until the point of comfortable survival has been achieved.

TL;DR: The tier pieces aren’t as bad as they used to be, but they’re still not better than the offsets.

Our AoE tanking to get a nerf?

Recently, Ghostcrawler had this to say in a threat about warrior complaints:

Long-term, the paladin manner of generating AE damage and threat is probably too good, especially given how simple it is. To be honest, we have very mixed feelings on the whole AE tanking game. We brought the druid and warrior more in line with the paladin for fear of recreating the Shattered Halls / Mount Hyjal experience, where other tanks just weren’t competitive. What that has led to of course is the AE tank + AE style of damage for almost every pull. You need the tools to be able to tank legitimate adds fights (imagine lots of incoming mobs), but does that mean every pull needs to devolve into that? We’d like to see less AE overall, so buffing everyone’s AE tools isn’t going to be tops on our agenda. That does however mean that we really can’t afford to have a “best AE tank”, and while things are more fair there than they were in BC, they aren’t fair enough.

I don’t think this means we’re going to get nerfed any time soon. I’ll explain why.

Here’s the problem with decrying the OPness of Paladin AoE: the sample is wrong. You can’t wait us tank the mobs before Marrowgar and assume that that’s the rule rather than the exception.

In that room I get to use Holy Wrath and benefit from additional damage multipliers from Glyph of Sense Undead and Crusade. On top of Seal of Command cleaving like nuts, of course our AoE damage is going to be ridiculous. It’s a fait accompli.

Line us up in a room full of evil monkeys or some mob type other than Undead/Demon and you’re going to see a different picture of Pally tanking.

Also, the fact can’t be ignored that Paladins were initially designed to be the best AoE tank, because generally that’s all we could do in Burning Crusade. Only in Wrath was it decided to bring other tanks up to our level, but not to concurrently re-evaluate Pally AoE prowess against the other tank classes. A classic oversight by Blizz.

My point being, Paladin AoE is only “overpowered” due to the situations we’re being observed tanking in. I posit we’d be much less effective in a dungeon crammed with non-Undead/Demon mobs. Still the best AoEer, sure, but not some godly tank that could hold a sweeping horde against all comers.

And every time Consecrate is assumed to be the end-all, be-all of our AoE arsenal I have to chuckle. This isn’t TBC, CC doesn’t stand for Constant Consecration anymore. We can’t just drop that golden puddle and make all the mobs stick to us like glue. What makes us such amazing AoE tanks are all the tools at our disposal: HotR, Seal of Command, Holy Wrath, Holy Shield, Retribution Aura, and Consecrate.

Now as to the reason behind GC’s aside regarding our tanking style, he’s probably foreshadowing a design decision that’ll come to bear in Cataclysm. They’re probably going to move away from raids at least, and maybe heroics, being complete AoE fests. Maybe with 75% AoE damage reductions across the board like Blessing of Kings suggested.

I wouldn’t worry about a nerf any time soon. Between the piddling warrior buffs (I use the term lightly) and the reluctance to fix DK survivability, GC has demonstrated time and time again they’re happy to leave tanks as is as long as that mythical “replacement” situation doesn’t occur.

AoE tanking is just another ball kicked down the road.

Nice: Armor values of t10 going up

Unexpected tank buff coming–armor value on all t10 gloves/chest pieces is being increased across the board. I wonder if this will blur the lines among what was, before, obviously “armor pieces” (the expertise of the Cataclysmic Chestguard notwithstanding) and “threat pieces”.

We recognize that many plate tanks are making their gear choices based on the amount of armor they’re provided, as this is currently the most preferred stat. In order to make the tier-10 plate tanking sets more desirable, we will be adjusting the stats on the gloves and chest pieces in order to inflate the amount of armor they provide in the next minor patch. This will apply to all item levels of the tier-10 death knight, warrior, and paladin tanking gloves and chest pieces.

Similar items crafted or purchased with Emblems of Frost will continue to be very good and will compare favorably to all but the Heroic difficulty boss loot, so you shouldn’t despair if you recently acquired any of those.

I’ll have to see the pieces first before I can pass judgement on this. Interesting change, nonetheless.

Update: To accommodate the armor increase, other stats we be reduced to free up the ipoints:

Different items will lose different defensive stats (parry, dodge, defense, etc.) to compensate for the bonus armor being added.