Passed out in the Pig and Whistle, no doubt.
Haven't had time to play WoW hardly at all this week. The sole exception being a period of about an hour and a half in the middle of the night Monday. I couldn't fall back asleep because of a nasty sore throat, so I had to give the meds a chance to kick in.
I was chatting with Millea about maybe throwing in a couple of RP posts on here. I've developed backstories for most of my characters in my brain, so maybe I'll explore that a bit and flex some creative writing muscles at the same time.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Mark 'em All and Let Elune Sort 'em Out
I promised in my first post that I wouldn't do much theorycrafting or anything of the sort here, but I wanted to touch on something that Millea said in the comments of my last post. Specifically, I wanted to talk about marking targets.
WotLK made it easier for warriors to tank more than one mob at a time...easier by a long shot. The thing is, though, that we're still not "AoE" tanks in the purest sense of the term. We just tank more than one mob at a time better than we used to.
Because the perception seems to be that all of a sudden warriors are on par with pallies as far as AoE tanking goes has led to a number of people thinking that marking groups isn't necessary anymore. I contend that it is.
First of all, because warriors aren't really AoE tanks powerful AoE classes (mages, warlocks, I'm looking at you) can very easily pull aggro off of a warrior when he or she is tanking 4 mobs and the dps is in AoE mode. We can thunderclap, shockwave, and tab-target all we want, but a well-geared lock or mage can and will pull aggro off of us if they're lighting up circles on the floor.
Second of all, chances are that one of the mobs in the group has an ability that makes them a problem if they're left alive too long (healing comes to mind first, but it's certainly not the only problematic ability). If the group is marked and focus-fired down, you can single out that troublemaker in the pack and get them out of the fight as soon as possible. On the other hand, if your group is AoEing the pack that mob has the potential to wreak havoc on your group (in the case of something like a mana burn) or make the pull last longer than necessary (in the case of a healer).
Marking makes the pull cleaner and helps the tank out quite a bit. If the dps is focused on one mob at a time, the tank only has to worry about keeping the rest of the mobs from running off because of global heal aggro. He or she can maximize threat on one target, giving the dps room to work, and t-clap/shockwave to keep the additional mobs off of the healers.
There's no real need to mark the whole group, either, unless you're using some form of crowd control. Just throw a skull up on each target when the previous target falls. I've got my raid marks bound to the number pad on my keyboard, which makes it even easier to throw up a mark or change it if necessary.
Just something to think about when you run your next instance.
Thanks, Millea, for making me break a promise on my blog 7 posts in.
WotLK made it easier for warriors to tank more than one mob at a time...easier by a long shot. The thing is, though, that we're still not "AoE" tanks in the purest sense of the term. We just tank more than one mob at a time better than we used to.
Because the perception seems to be that all of a sudden warriors are on par with pallies as far as AoE tanking goes has led to a number of people thinking that marking groups isn't necessary anymore. I contend that it is.
First of all, because warriors aren't really AoE tanks powerful AoE classes (mages, warlocks, I'm looking at you) can very easily pull aggro off of a warrior when he or she is tanking 4 mobs and the dps is in AoE mode. We can thunderclap, shockwave, and tab-target all we want, but a well-geared lock or mage can and will pull aggro off of us if they're lighting up circles on the floor.
Second of all, chances are that one of the mobs in the group has an ability that makes them a problem if they're left alive too long (healing comes to mind first, but it's certainly not the only problematic ability). If the group is marked and focus-fired down, you can single out that troublemaker in the pack and get them out of the fight as soon as possible. On the other hand, if your group is AoEing the pack that mob has the potential to wreak havoc on your group (in the case of something like a mana burn) or make the pull last longer than necessary (in the case of a healer).
Marking makes the pull cleaner and helps the tank out quite a bit. If the dps is focused on one mob at a time, the tank only has to worry about keeping the rest of the mobs from running off because of global heal aggro. He or she can maximize threat on one target, giving the dps room to work, and t-clap/shockwave to keep the additional mobs off of the healers.
There's no real need to mark the whole group, either, unless you're using some form of crowd control. Just throw a skull up on each target when the previous target falls. I've got my raid marks bound to the number pad on my keyboard, which makes it even easier to throw up a mark or change it if necessary.
Just something to think about when you run your next instance.
Thanks, Millea, for making me break a promise on my blog 7 posts in.
Monday, April 6, 2009
No Naxx for Mis
This past weekend I had to bow out of our guild's Naxxramas run.
/sigh
Saturday I had to make an epic five hour journey to reacquire the kids, then make the five hour journey back. I got home before invites went out, but there was just enough chaos in the house that there was no chance I could be a productive member of the team.
Sunday night they were going to go back in, but again I was unable to attend for similar reasons (house full of kids, splitting migraine from living in a house full of kids, etc). It's really starting to get frustrating.
I don't like to go off on "the way things used to be" tangents, but in the BC days I was the guild's main tank and raid leader. I spent so much time in Kara I had a tab running with a couple of the concubines. For a period of about six or seven months, I was in there every week taking as many guildies as I could and helping them get geared.
Now, thanks to my hiatus, I've lost my MT spot and I'm barely geared to run heroic anything. I can't seem to find the time to do much to improve that, either.
Probably the most frustrating thing is people (in my own guild, no less) saying things like, "you'll grow into your role eventually" or "you'll learn how to tank if you do it more." How quickly we are forgotten.
Anyway, if you've made it this far thanks for letting me vent. I didn't intend this to be a "feel sorry for me" post. Just a little something that I had to get off of my chest.
/rant over
/sigh
Saturday I had to make an epic five hour journey to reacquire the kids, then make the five hour journey back. I got home before invites went out, but there was just enough chaos in the house that there was no chance I could be a productive member of the team.
Sunday night they were going to go back in, but again I was unable to attend for similar reasons (house full of kids, splitting migraine from living in a house full of kids, etc). It's really starting to get frustrating.
I don't like to go off on "the way things used to be" tangents, but in the BC days I was the guild's main tank and raid leader. I spent so much time in Kara I had a tab running with a couple of the concubines. For a period of about six or seven months, I was in there every week taking as many guildies as I could and helping them get geared.
Now, thanks to my hiatus, I've lost my MT spot and I'm barely geared to run heroic anything. I can't seem to find the time to do much to improve that, either.
Probably the most frustrating thing is people (in my own guild, no less) saying things like, "you'll grow into your role eventually" or "you'll learn how to tank if you do it more." How quickly we are forgotten.
Anyway, if you've made it this far thanks for letting me vent. I didn't intend this to be a "feel sorry for me" post. Just a little something that I had to get off of my chest.
/rant over
Friday, April 3, 2009
Tanking Stats
Cheesi
As I mentioned earlier, my wife is a gnome rogue named Cheesi. As promised, here is the origin of that name:
When I started playing WoW, she was determined to not become a WoW Widow and created a druid on my account to try it out. She enjoyed playing the game and decided to get her own account so that we could play together.
Around that time, her grandfather's health was fading. She travelled to Tennessee to visit him and met his dog, Chiisai, which is (romanized) Japanese for small. This carried with it a bit of irony, as Chiisai was a Great Pyrenees who was the size of a riding lawnmower.
Upon her return, while she was waiting for her druid to get transferred over to her new account, she created a little gnome rogue and named her after the dog. She played with the spelling a bit and came up with Cheesi (pronounced with a long i). Even after her druid made it to her account, Cheesi eventually became her main.
She's quite good at the rogue class, causing all sorts of havoc in battlegrounds and, in the BC days, giving me fits trying to keep my threat high enough for her to not pull aggro.
Cheesi's been on hiatus as well and is still on the road to 80, but she's getting there.
PS: Women of Bloodhoof, before you decide to
When I started playing WoW, she was determined to not become a WoW Widow and created a druid on my account to try it out. She enjoyed playing the game and decided to get her own account so that we could play together.
Around that time, her grandfather's health was fading. She travelled to Tennessee to visit him and met his dog, Chiisai, which is (romanized) Japanese for small. This carried with it a bit of irony, as Chiisai was a Great Pyrenees who was the size of a riding lawnmower.
Upon her return, while she was waiting for her druid to get transferred over to her new account, she created a little gnome rogue and named her after the dog. She played with the spelling a bit and came up with Cheesi (pronounced with a long i). Even after her druid made it to her account, Cheesi eventually became her main.
She's quite good at the rogue class, causing all sorts of havoc in battlegrounds and, in the BC days, giving me fits trying to keep my threat high enough for her to not pull aggro.
Cheesi's been on hiatus as well and is still on the road to 80, but she's getting there.
PS: Women of Bloodhoof, before you decide to
- /target Misneach
- /flirt
watch your back.
Literally.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Sons of Oh Dear
As in "Oh Dear, another rep grind."
Last night our guild went to VoA. I received an invite, but was forced to decline because I was babysitting the Baby Tank and our neighbors' kids.
Our other three kids are out of town for spring break. Had that not been the case I would have drafted our oldest (who plays WoW once in a great while and understands that purple loot is wicked cool) to help out while we ran the instance. Now the Baby Tank is surprisingly low maintenance for a 2 year-old, but our neighbors have a 3 year-old son who, by contrast, is not.
When I used to lead raids I had a macro on one of my action bars that said "AFK...kid stuff" and flagged me as AFK. When you're the raid leader you can get away with that once or twice, but when you're the lowly OT you're asking to get kicked out of the raid.
So, as a result, I decided to work on opening up the Sons of Hodir rep. It's much easier questing when there are small children running around than trying to hold aggro on something.
It's not a terribly bad quest chain to get to the point where you're earning rep with them, but I know after doing the dailies for a while (and being repeatedly called "little one") it's going to get really annoying.
WTB Sons of Hodir tabard. Of course it would probably be way too big for me.
Last night our guild went to VoA. I received an invite, but was forced to decline because I was babysitting the Baby Tank and our neighbors' kids.
Our other three kids are out of town for spring break. Had that not been the case I would have drafted our oldest (who plays WoW once in a great while and understands that purple loot is wicked cool) to help out while we ran the instance. Now the Baby Tank is surprisingly low maintenance for a 2 year-old, but our neighbors have a 3 year-old son who, by contrast, is not.
When I used to lead raids I had a macro on one of my action bars that said "AFK...kid stuff" and flagged me as AFK. When you're the raid leader you can get away with that once or twice, but when you're the lowly OT you're asking to get kicked out of the raid.
So, as a result, I decided to work on opening up the Sons of Hodir rep. It's much easier questing when there are small children running around than trying to hold aggro on something.
It's not a terribly bad quest chain to get to the point where you're earning rep with them, but I know after doing the dailies for a while (and being repeatedly called "little one") it's going to get really annoying.
WTB Sons of Hodir tabard. Of course it would probably be way too big for me.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Tanks and Healers
Keredria posted a blog today from a healer's perspective that got me thinking about the whole tank/healer synergy thing.
I've started running heroics with my guildie Jazharra, a crazy little gnome mage. We're often low on guild personnel, so we usually just pug to fill any empty spots.
Last night, we were running Heroic Violet Hold. We started off the run with a pugged hunter and two former guildies. The run kinda fell apart when we wiped on the second boss, who happened to be Zuramat (one of the "oh crap, not this one" fights). This left Jaz and myself sitting there trying to decide if we should try to pug the other three spots or just call it.
In the meantime, Briele, a holy priest logged on. Bri and I have worked together many, many times but we've both been out of commission for a while dealing with real life stuff. As a result, we're not necessarily the best-geared healer/tank combo out there at the moment.
We pugged the other two dps slots and got started. Aside from one death that was quickly handled by a rez before portal 17, the run was incredibly smooth. It almost felt like it wasn't even set to heroic.
The healer(s) and the tank(s) are the "battery" of the group, and, while gear certainly matters, chemistry and experience working together can often make up for any gear deficiencies. I know when Bri's gonna bail me out or if I need to do something drastic, and she knows when I'm in trouble and she needs to take emergency action.
On a side note, Cyanigosa was kind enough to provide Briele with the Azure Cloth Bindings. Gratz, Bri!
I've started running heroics with my guildie Jazharra, a crazy little gnome mage. We're often low on guild personnel, so we usually just pug to fill any empty spots.
Last night, we were running Heroic Violet Hold. We started off the run with a pugged hunter and two former guildies. The run kinda fell apart when we wiped on the second boss, who happened to be Zuramat (one of the "oh crap, not this one" fights). This left Jaz and myself sitting there trying to decide if we should try to pug the other three spots or just call it.
In the meantime, Briele, a holy priest logged on. Bri and I have worked together many, many times but we've both been out of commission for a while dealing with real life stuff. As a result, we're not necessarily the best-geared healer/tank combo out there at the moment.
We pugged the other two dps slots and got started. Aside from one death that was quickly handled by a rez before portal 17, the run was incredibly smooth. It almost felt like it wasn't even set to heroic.
The healer(s) and the tank(s) are the "battery" of the group, and, while gear certainly matters, chemistry and experience working together can often make up for any gear deficiencies. I know when Bri's gonna bail me out or if I need to do something drastic, and she knows when I'm in trouble and she needs to take emergency action.
On a side note, Cyanigosa was kind enough to provide Briele with the Azure Cloth Bindings. Gratz, Bri!
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