When DPS Goes Overboard

Let them.

At least if you know them.

DPSers should not pull aggro. That's part of their job...maximize sustained damage without generating enough threat to pull off the tank.

But that's not the point of this post.

We've gotten into something of a rhythm in EoF. Every non-raid night we run heroics, starting with the dailies and moving on to whatever we have time for. Due to scheduling, it's usually the same crew online every night. I usually log on, whisper Mill to see if she's done the dailies yet on Tatia, her healer, then pick up as many guild DPSers as we can because I. Hate. Pugs.

Last night Tatia, Vel, DPS Warrior extraordinaire Nessfactor and I ran UK, the daily heroic. We 4-manned it because nobody in the guild was available and there wasn't a promising alternative in LFG. We then picked up a Rogue who came with us to H-HoL and H-VH.

But that's not the point of this post, either.

Last night while we were running HoL and VH,  Ness and Vel were pulling aggro on pack pulls. In VH when a single mob came out of the portal, they started pewpewing before I could even lay a finger on it. I didn't have time for a Shield Slam, let alone a full rotation.

If this happened in a raid or a PuG group this would be a very different post. I'd be complaining about how people have gotten away from the basics and aren't letting tanks do their job, and that negligence led to wipe after wipe after wipe.

Last night, though, they didn't. Sure, we had a death here or there, but we never had a full-blown wipe.

Why? Familiarity. Vel and Ness know what I'm capable of as a tank. I know what they're capable of as DPSers. They know I'll do everything within my power to pull aggro back...at least I hope they trust me that much.

From my standpoint, it's a refreshing challenge. Having the opportunity to run a couple of easy heroics (UK and VH, specifically...HoL isn't all that bad, but certainly a different level than the other two) with a DPS crew who opened it up a bit forced me to stay on my game.

In a group situation, DPS has a ceiling that the tank defines. On the one hand, they need to be aware of that ceiling, but, on the other, the tank needs to make that ceiling as high as possible. Last night, they were setting the pace, not me. I still had to build the ceiling, but they decided to design the room.

I Taunted, Intervened, and burned Challenging Shout cooldowns more than a few times. I had to stay on top of my rotation and make sure that I was generating as much threat as I possibly could...even in situations where I wasn't working with a full rage bar. They didn't make it easy on me, and when we were done, I was worn out.

If you were never in a group that had trouble when it came to their threat levels, you'd never figure out how to efficiently use abilities like Taunt or Intervene. You'd never have to figure out how to pull aggro back when all of your emergency buttons are on cooldown. You'd never figure out how much threat you can really generate. You'd go along, happily tanking away, until something bad happens and you find out you're not prepared.

Being in a safe environment, like an easy heroic with guildies who know how hard they can push and get away with it, is the place to practice those skills. It's like a fire drill...learn the emergency procedure so that when it counts, you know what to do.

So what's the point of this post?

If you're running along with a group you know and they start generating more threat than they usually do, don't ask them to stop. Instead, take the challenge and push right back...pump out as much threat as you can and, if they pull aggro, be ready to save the day.

In the long run, it'll make you better at what you do, and, if you look at it the right way, it's kinda fun.

Broadening Her Horizons - Part III

I decided that, while I wanted to expose the Baby Tank to all of the tank classes, Death and Decay, Desecration, Blood Worms, and Ghouls were a bit much for a three year old.

So here's a picture of her wearing a cute hat and playing in the yard.

/target Readers
/cast Lazy Blog Entry

Specialist

I'm a career tank.

I've mentioned it in guild chat many times when chatting about tanking and tank alts and all of that.

Since my low 60s I've been a Prot Warrior. I have an Arms secondary spec that I bought with the best of intentions but have yet to really put to good use.

I quest in Defensive Stance. I PvP in Defensive Stance. I work the AH in Defensive Stance. I do the John Travolta Saturday Night Fever dance in Defensive Stance. I sleep in Defensive Stance.

I have no max-level alts. While other folks run around on their pewpew mains and grab their "Tank Alt" or "Healer Alt" to run an instance, I just bring me. What you see is what you get.

If the servers shut down tomorrow and we all moved over to the next big thing in MMOs, I'd pick me a tank class and keep running with it. It's what I do.

That's what makes me different than the majority of the WoW population. Most people level a flashy DPS main and then, as a backup plan, drag along a tank or healer alt. In some cases that tank or healer alt becomes their main by necessity, but they've always got their DPS character in their back pocket if needed.

Not me. I'm just Mis.

It's a curse and a blessing. The curse is that if somebody's tanking the instance already, I sure as heck can't go along as DPS and make much of a difference. I'll do moderately mediocre damage in my Arms spec and in Prot I'll be too rage-starved to do anything except auto-attack.

It's a blessing, however, because it makes me a specialist. I like to think that focusing so much time and energy on tanking has made me better at it. What some people with tank alts have to concentrate on remembering to do I can do without even thinking about it, which frees up my brain to handle the rest of what's going on: pull, get behind the mob(s), face them away from the party, cluster, move the camera so you can see if something's after somebody else, run the rotation, spam Heroic Strike, watch for Sword and Board, watch for Revenge, be ready to Taunt, be ready to Intervene, keep T-Clap and Demo Shout up, keep Commanding/Battle Shout up, be ready with a cooldown if the healer gets silenced, etc...

I'm not saying that someone with a tank alt can't be a good tank. On the contrary, I know plenty who are very, very good. I just know that my fellow career tanks (many of whom seem to be bloggers, incidentally) and I bring something unique and different to the table.

Tank LFW.

Embracing Off-Tanking

Back in my low 60s Cheesi and I were constantly running the early TBC five-mans. During this time, we happened upon a Druid about our level named Nitedragon. We pugged with him several times and developed a good relationship, and he was kind enough to give healing a go so that we would have an easier time putting groups together.

Soon thereafter, Nite joined our guild. He immediately became one of the most helpful, willing, committed guildies we had.

When we started the TBC raiding game, Nite, much like he did when we were running Ramps over and over, left his comfort zone to meet our needs. Our guild suddenly had healers, but the only tanks we had were me and about 25 Hunter pets.

Nite specced Feral and went off to do his homework. He figured out how to spec, how to gear, and worked very, very hard learning how to tank. When we hit Kara, we hit it hard, and Nite and I ran through that place side by side week after week after week. We jokingly referred to him as "Mis's pet bear."

With all the research and all the practice, Nite got good...very good. He bailed me out when I picked up adds, grabbed bosses if I died, executed perfect chain-pulling, and prevented many wipes with quick-thinking and flawless tanking.

Our first time in ZA, he and I nailed the tank-swap and one-shot Nalorakk without breaking a sweat. He once picked up Nightbane after I dropped and tanked him through to the kill.

Now, when we run Heroics together and he comes along in cat form, if I overpull there's instantly a very large, angry bear standing next to me picking up the adds. When we ran Naxx last weekend, he did a lot of great work snagging adds and protecting healers and let me focus on bosses...many of whom I had never seen before and most of whom we one-shot.

So why am I gushing about Nite?

Because the guy has turned off-tanking into an art form. It's not like a lot of runs I've been in, especially pugs, where the guy with the lower gear score automatically gets put on off-tank duty. Instead, Nite recognizes it as a distinct role...different from that of the main tank and equally, if not more, important.

While I'm locked in on a boss, Nite is often running around grabbing adds, protecting healers and overzealous DPS, and making sure that he's always ready to charge in and pick up the boss if I die. He constantly has a ton on his plate, but he makes it look easy and actually enjoys it.

What can you take from this?

If you're an off-tank in your guild, don't feel like you're less of a tank than the main tank. That doesn't have to be the case at all. Off-tanking is a different job than main tanking...if you approach it that way and take the opportunity to learn to do it well, you'll be helping out your raid group immensely.

If you come across a good off-tank, not just one who facerolls through the boss fight while thinking about what tank gear that boss drops, show him or her a little love. It takes a special kind of person to take on that much responsibility and not care about who's getting the glory.

Crap I Did Last Night

Now that title represents blogging at its finest.

Actually, last night was quite a busy one. I logged in later than I usually do after working late and then walking our new American Bulldog puppy, Delilah. We've had her for several weeks, and she's almost 4 months old. 30-something pounds of determination and she's going to get up to about 100-120 lbs. Gonna be a whole lot of dog.

But, anyway, here's the WoW stuff:

• Did three Heroics: CoS (reg daily), VH, and Oculus (heroic daily).
• CoS: Grabbed some nukers and made it a drake run. Cleared it with about 3 or 4 minutes to spare and, since everybody else had one, I got the drake. That made me happy.
• VH: Ran this one because it was...well...right there after we turned in the regular daily. Nothing terribly notable, except Vel, one of our 1337 Shammies, got enough emblems for the upgrade he was after, so he grabbed it before we hit Oculus.
• Oculus: A couple of pulls in, I hit exalted with the Knights of the Ebon Blade and got the achievement for that as well as the Northrend Vanguard achievement. I also learned why everybody hates Oculus. Wiped a couple of times on the last boss, but finally managed to make it happen. It'll be smoother next time.
• The emblems I managed to pick up allowed me to get my glove upgrade. Now I've gotta figure out what to aim for next as far as Conquest, Valor, and/or Triumph emblem purchases go.
• And finally, I did my fishing daily before I logged off, turned it in, and got the Battered Jungle Hat. After running around a bit in it, I had an idea. With the hat on, I equipped my defense trinket and took a look at my stats. Aside from the huge armor ding I take without my headpiece, my stats aren't that bad. I opened Outfitter and saved the outfit under the name "Pimp."

Sometime in the near future, I'm going to grab some guildies who are as crazy as me, flip over to the Pimp outfit, and do a Pimp Run in one of the easier heroics.

If it happens, you'll read about it here. I'll take screenshots.

My 100th Post

I'm actually surprised that I (a) got to 100 posts so quickly and (b) didn't get chased out of the WoW Blogosphere by post #45 or so. Here I am, though, with 100 posts under my belt.

I think that, since this is something of a milestone post, it's a good time to summarize what we've all learned here in these several months that I've been blogging.

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Um...so...yeah...

Thanks for reading!

Call It Like It Is

Sunday I picked up the heroic and regular daily quests, which both happened to be Utgarde Pinnacle. Didn't get to it on Sunday, but I held on to both because it would be easy to kill both birds with that one stone.

Ran it last night and, finally, got the Red Sword of Courage. At face value, it may not look like much of an upgrade compared to the Teldrassil Protector I've been using forever, but I rolled on it (even though we had a DK in the group with a tank spec...sorry, Landel) because (a) it's just a teeny bit faster, which I like in a tank weapon, (b) because it give me a little more stam and, most importantly, (c) because of the Human expertise racial.

I lose a little strength, defense, and parry, but I'm not really fretting over any of that because I'm probably going to grab the Gauntlets of the Royal Watch tonight which will upgrade my T7s. Parry still suffers, but I'm not terribly concerned.

Worked up my sword skill last night from 375 to 399 doing AT dailies and then tanked H-VH with it. I think, based on the results, that I made the right choice...even if I end up upgrading it sooner rather than later.

But that's not the point of this post.

The point of this post is the quest item that needs to be obtained for the Heroic Utgarde Pinnacle daily: the Locket of the Deceased Queen.

Cute.

They make it sound like she passed away peacefully in her sleep. Nice, gentle, PC approach to it.

If you quested through Howling Fjord, you "deceased" the queen in a violent fashion right in front of King Ymiron.

They should call it the Locket of the chick you killed in your low 70s for a couple gold and a soon-to-be-replaced quest reward.