Oh my goodness! I completed a raid in Cataclysm within 2 months of it's release in patch 4.3!
As someone who has not raided much, I have to say, it's rather amazing. I have so far gotten into two (2) LFR groups on my mage Rizzir. He's Arcane specced for PVE (though i'm considering switching back to fire - fire just seems more fun, as opposed to spamming 1 or 2 buttons like you usually do as an Arcane mage. I'd really prefer to raid as frost, but the DS just isn't there, even with all the upgrades that have gotten me to a gear level allowing entry into LFR raids.
The First time I did LFR I came in after the 2nd boss and the raid fell apart on the last boss at Malygos' old stomping grounds (I hated that fight the ONE time I did it on my main).
So, some thoughts after doing LFR twice. Yes, it definitely has a much 'easier' feel to it. No harsh mechanics that will wipe a riad for one persons mistake. I have to say, I get real confused with the massive amount of action going on onin a raid - trying to determine which things are good and what is bad (i.e. not standing in fire). LFR is pretty forgiving in this regard, and people explaining things helps a great deal, too. Not saying folks don;t explain things in regular raids, but what happens in LFR is muchmore forgiving for mistakes people make.
I have a 2nd toon tha tis ready for LFR now in addition to my mage. My old standby bank alt for 3 expansions, my rogue Snid. He's actually been around since Vanilla WoW. For some reason I never really got into playing him all that much and used him for storage and as a bank alt for the longest time. I even had his XP frozen at 19 for quite some time, up until it was apparent that twinking as we new it in Vanilla/BC was dead. He's actually made some of the fastest gains of XP and equipment of any of my toons. It helps too that he has maxed out enchanting and tailoring (I like the flying carpet!). He's good to go for LFR as either a Sub Rogue or Combat, as he has good gear for both specs and I seems to have a decent idea of how to play him relatively effectively.
I've gotten a bit bored with my Main toon, Eeo. I like him, but having finished Molten Front I've been kinda blah about playing him much lately - although getting that bad-ass axe from the Echo of Baine in End Time had really helped his PVE DPS. On a side note, I was thrilled to get that axe on my Alliance Dwarf Warrior Rogin on his first run thru End Time (just like Eeo!). Thank goodness for 377 PVP gear allowing me to qualify to get in there. Rather amazing how much his DPS jumped w=once he upgraded to a 378 Axe from an iLVL 316 blue mace!!
Now that I know I can get into raids and experience end game content, I'm happy to hav e achance to go back and go through older content with soe other toons. My Mage is getting Netherwing rep moving up, so maybe a mount is somewhere in his near future. I want to do that on my main as well. And since they're in Outland, I'll have more chances to max those other outland reps and just MAYBE get the rare mount from Anzu is Sethekk Halls.
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Friday, November 25, 2011
Having Fun? Maybe after 4.3 hits....
I keep asking myself that question. Too many times I find I'm getting onto WOW just to pass some time, but with a patch coming soon™, I find I am loathe to try to skill up any professions or make much of anything as it will be nigh but obsolete after the patch hits.
Once 4.3 hits, then it's another story. I'm hoping my tailor will be able to make higher item level PVP gear for skillups. if they don't sell I can always disenchant them - enchanting was why I took up tailoring on my rogue so many years ago. Poor fella was loitering at level 19 since...oh, sometime in BC. He's been my default 'banker' for much of that time. In the last few months I've gotten him to 85, had a quite a bit of fun doing it, too. Rogues, I have discovered, are quite a fun class to play.
I even used him to lead a pickup group raid on Garr up in Mt. Hyjal. We wiped a good number of times, learned a few thing (you can zerg him). So despite a REALLY high repair bill for the adventure, it was a rather fun little diversion - and a chance to work with a tank I'd worked with in raids in Wrath.
My most recent tanking outing was one I did with my Paladin in Zul Gurub. I've been there a handful of times and have a rough (VERY rough) idea of what to do in the fights. The last boss was the biggest challenge - particularly in the 2nd phase when you have to pick up the big guys and let them trash the chains. I'm still foggy about dealing with the ghosts, but despite a number of wipes while I was learning things and having our dps lineup change a few time, we finally defeated him (Jin'do I think it is...). I kept getting shispers about needing better gear, but I think most of the people who said something realized I was there to GET better gear. I did get a better tanking weapon out of the deal.
I've got until the 21st of December to get that toon upgraded and then that account is going dormant for an undetermined period of time. I can't justify having 3 active WoW accounts when the game is in the doldrums and I'm not terribly enthused about playing right now.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
FIRST CATACLYSM RAID!!
I off-tanked for a group doing BH. It seemed like a group of folks that knew each other, i was to excited and worried about doing OK that I didn't notice guild names.
Among the more humorous things about this tanking endeavor is that I did it on my Paladin, Suitthang (pronounce it like sweeth-thang) my 'youngest' overall tank. I was in the middle of buying the t11 Paladin tank legs and gemming them when I answered a request in trade chat for a tank for BH. Once I got there they asked is I knew the fight.
I said that some big baddie was gonna try to do mean hurtie things and I should get it to pick on me instead of everyone else. Wasn;t sure if there were sighs or chuckles on Vent (yeah,we were using vent - quite useful, that Ventrilo), but they gave me a a quick explanation - something about taunting after some effect, then we were going.
Yeah. Wipe #1. They were very cool, explaining correct positioning for me in relation to the MT, then we were off again. For wipe #2. Didn't hear the call for the taunt, MT died, I died, raid died. Lesson learned there. Upon deciding that a louder call for me to taunt would be useful for me, and my repeating back wast was expected we went at the the Eyeball beast yet again. Got him to about 2%, and oddly enough I was just about the last person to die and I was trying to figure out any and all CD's I could pop that were available, in the off hope I could get that last little bit. No go. Wipe #3. Thisone was not on me. PHEW!
Next attempt was like clockwork. Communication was great, I was getting the hang of when to taunt and down he went. Of course no tank drops, not that I'd have had a chance at them anyway, but no big deal. First raid boss tanked succesfully. For good measure we went down and tackled Argolath (I thik thats his name). Goa fast but good explanation and we went at it. My previous experience in raids was useful when the fire phase hit and I knew to GTFO. No wipes, taunted when asked, all the usuall tankish stuff. My DPS was the suck compared to everyone else, but considering I was wearing about three green pieces of gear and still haven;t changed my glyphs to some more effective tankie glyphs for pallies, the event was quite a success.
Just MAYBE, i might stand a chance in the troll instances. Would prefer getting upgrade for those greens, particularly the weapon! LOL
Among the more humorous things about this tanking endeavor is that I did it on my Paladin, Suitthang (pronounce it like sweeth-thang) my 'youngest' overall tank. I was in the middle of buying the t11 Paladin tank legs and gemming them when I answered a request in trade chat for a tank for BH. Once I got there they asked is I knew the fight.
I said that some big baddie was gonna try to do mean hurtie things and I should get it to pick on me instead of everyone else. Wasn;t sure if there were sighs or chuckles on Vent (yeah,we were using vent - quite useful, that Ventrilo), but they gave me a a quick explanation - something about taunting after some effect, then we were going.
Yeah. Wipe #1. They were very cool, explaining correct positioning for me in relation to the MT, then we were off again. For wipe #2. Didn't hear the call for the taunt, MT died, I died, raid died. Lesson learned there. Upon deciding that a louder call for me to taunt would be useful for me, and my repeating back wast was expected we went at the the Eyeball beast yet again. Got him to about 2%, and oddly enough I was just about the last person to die and I was trying to figure out any and all CD's I could pop that were available, in the off hope I could get that last little bit. No go. Wipe #3. Thisone was not on me. PHEW!
Next attempt was like clockwork. Communication was great, I was getting the hang of when to taunt and down he went. Of course no tank drops, not that I'd have had a chance at them anyway, but no big deal. First raid boss tanked succesfully. For good measure we went down and tackled Argolath (I thik thats his name). Goa fast but good explanation and we went at it. My previous experience in raids was useful when the fire phase hit and I knew to GTFO. No wipes, taunted when asked, all the usuall tankish stuff. My DPS was the suck compared to everyone else, but considering I was wearing about three green pieces of gear and still haven;t changed my glyphs to some more effective tankie glyphs for pallies, the event was quite a success.
Just MAYBE, i might stand a chance in the troll instances. Would prefer getting upgrade for those greens, particularly the weapon! LOL
Saturday, July 9, 2011
I _REALLY_ hate heroics!
I'm probably starting to sound like a broken record, but I really do still have a rabid dislike of heroics.
They add all these raid inspired mechanics into fights that you THOUGHT you knew, so now you have to put up with dying umpteen whatever times to learn a fight if you are like me and mentally, as a result of a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) thanks to a drunk driver, have difficulty adjusting to dramatic changes or too much "stuff" going on at once. Problem is, most LFD groups do not like wiping multiple times.
So 9 times out of 10 when I queue up for a heroic there are multiple wipes on some boss, a lot of mutual bitching about "do this, not that" and "don't stand in the bad stuff" and the group falling apart, or I just give up because I'll get too frustrated if I keep trying and failing. I move out of 'bad stuff' but the problem is, the damage is so great that if you get hit by even a little bit of the 'bad stuff'' then you are toast.
I get frustrated at the people in Blizzard forums who love to call people "baddies" who just want to be carried if they post something like this blog post. I've never wanted to be carried.
Then they accuse you of calling for encounter to be nerfed. I've wished some encounters would get nerfed, but I'd rather LEARN them!
I had some great experiences in Wrath with raid groups doing Naxx. The people leading had patience. Patience to EXPLAIN things. Patience to keep at things because we were improving.
People love to suggest I watch encounter videos on tankspot or whatever. Watching videos doesn't cut it, doing the encounter is the best way I learn how to do encounters on any given class. If watching videos was enough, I'd be able to play guitar or hit a baseball, but life don't work like that.
Blizzard is under some misguided notion that the cataclysm heroics will self-nerf as people get higher item level gear. I suppose with some classes, there may be some truth to it. Not with my mage. Poor squishy troll has serious issues living through many of the heroic encounters in Cataclysm. /sigh
They add all these raid inspired mechanics into fights that you THOUGHT you knew, so now you have to put up with dying umpteen whatever times to learn a fight if you are like me and mentally, as a result of a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) thanks to a drunk driver, have difficulty adjusting to dramatic changes or too much "stuff" going on at once. Problem is, most LFD groups do not like wiping multiple times.
So 9 times out of 10 when I queue up for a heroic there are multiple wipes on some boss, a lot of mutual bitching about "do this, not that" and "don't stand in the bad stuff" and the group falling apart, or I just give up because I'll get too frustrated if I keep trying and failing. I move out of 'bad stuff' but the problem is, the damage is so great that if you get hit by even a little bit of the 'bad stuff'' then you are toast.
I get frustrated at the people in Blizzard forums who love to call people "baddies" who just want to be carried if they post something like this blog post. I've never wanted to be carried.
Then they accuse you of calling for encounter to be nerfed. I've wished some encounters would get nerfed, but I'd rather LEARN them!
I had some great experiences in Wrath with raid groups doing Naxx. The people leading had patience. Patience to EXPLAIN things. Patience to keep at things because we were improving.
People love to suggest I watch encounter videos on tankspot or whatever. Watching videos doesn't cut it, doing the encounter is the best way I learn how to do encounters on any given class. If watching videos was enough, I'd be able to play guitar or hit a baseball, but life don't work like that.
Blizzard is under some misguided notion that the cataclysm heroics will self-nerf as people get higher item level gear. I suppose with some classes, there may be some truth to it. Not with my mage. Poor squishy troll has serious issues living through many of the heroic encounters in Cataclysm. /sigh
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Non-social versus anti-social
A post on story about some "War" Game feature being added (or already in WOW but unknown) on the WOW Main page led me to reply to someone as follows:
you mean asocial (Avoiding or averse to the society of others; not sociable) rather than antisocial? Goodness knows there are enough anti-social people in the game already, most of whom are progression raiding types. I've never been a very social type, and everything I heard about raids back in Vanilla WOW really turned me off the idea of large progression raiding guilds. That and a lot of people who had no interest in sharing knowledge about game mechanics, encounters, etc. I really dislike that WOW has gone back to a Vanilla feel in that regard: Raiding has reverted to a "know it already or GTFO" mentality again, meaning there are going to be a lot of non-hardcore progression types who may never see some content until long after it has become obsolete.
I have yet to go into Gruul's Lair, Tempest Keep: The Eye or Coilfang Reservoir: Serpentshrine Cavern and have only fought trash in the Black Temple when some guild was farming Hearts of Darkness in BC on mobs before Mother Shahraz, and made one failed attempt with a guild member or 2 at taking on Hellfire Citadel: Magtheridon's Lair (it did NOT go well, lol). I've only popped into Caverns of Time: Hyjal Summit with my one of my level 85 toons just to try out taking on the trash mobs there. Boring, and even though I could take the packs of mobs down it was just boring. I got into the ORIGINAL Naxxramas when it was still in the Eastern Plaguelands back during BC. Right after I did the attunement quest I popped in and, to my chagrin, discovered 2 things.
#1 I could NOT take on two aboms on my own and live,
and more importantly
#2 was that there was NO EXIT from the original Naxx!
Needless to say my tank died upon learning those 2 things. A month or so later someone got a group together to PUG Naxx and I went. That place was hella-Hard! We only tried to go for Anub'Rekhan and got toasted BIGTIME! The trash even gave us a helluva time before we ever got to the boss. While it was kind of fun to at least get into Naxx and have a go at the boss, I am not a fan of the kind of killer "you must be perfect" mechanics that they had in Vanilla Naxx, and now in heroics and raids in Cataclysm.
Just because I am not a fan of them does not mean I do not think they should exist. Obviously there are players out there who thrive on that sort of challenge. I have a disability that affects how well and how fast i can process information in new situations, it's even harder if I am under stress. So far in Cataclysm I've gotten to where I am ....somewhat...accustomed to a few fights in heroic mode. Lost City for some reason seems to be about the easiest of the heroics for me (and quite frankly there are still aspects of the various fights I do not fully comprehend. I've learned enough to at least be able to keep from getting myself nuked, even of it does lower my dps.I contribute and we get the boss down. So I do not have the best DPS, I can live with that. Once I have enough experience doing various fights. I have to DO the fight in any given class to really know how to do it, watching a video is not the same for me - they are nice for getting a general idea of what happens, but being there and fighting a boss on a hunter is different than being there as a DPS warrior or as a caster.
Instance runs go so much faster when people know them and when gear is not so much of an issue. I saw that a lot when I would pug raids in Wrath and still see it now when doing instances on my lowbie toons. I love being able to get into a group for Nexxus or Utgarde Keep and rolling thru them very quickly - people may die on occasion, but no one stresses over it and people are almost universally cool about needing on gear when you need it. A fast 15-20 minute run thru UK beats the hell out of a 2 hour long heroic with people dropping from having multiple wipes and people being snotty toward one another. I'll take easy and fun in a game over long, stress-filled bitchfests that heroics tend to be these days.
you mean asocial (Avoiding or averse to the society of others; not sociable) rather than antisocial? Goodness knows there are enough anti-social people in the game already, most of whom are progression raiding types. I've never been a very social type, and everything I heard about raids back in Vanilla WOW really turned me off the idea of large progression raiding guilds. That and a lot of people who had no interest in sharing knowledge about game mechanics, encounters, etc. I really dislike that WOW has gone back to a Vanilla feel in that regard: Raiding has reverted to a "know it already or GTFO" mentality again, meaning there are going to be a lot of non-hardcore progression types who may never see some content until long after it has become obsolete.
I have yet to go into Gruul's Lair, Tempest Keep: The Eye or Coilfang Reservoir: Serpentshrine Cavern and have only fought trash in the Black Temple when some guild was farming Hearts of Darkness in BC on mobs before Mother Shahraz, and made one failed attempt with a guild member or 2 at taking on Hellfire Citadel: Magtheridon's Lair (it did NOT go well, lol). I've only popped into Caverns of Time: Hyjal Summit with my one of my level 85 toons just to try out taking on the trash mobs there. Boring, and even though I could take the packs of mobs down it was just boring. I got into the ORIGINAL Naxxramas when it was still in the Eastern Plaguelands back during BC. Right after I did the attunement quest I popped in and, to my chagrin, discovered 2 things.
#1 I could NOT take on two aboms on my own and live,
and more importantly
#2 was that there was NO EXIT from the original Naxx!
Needless to say my tank died upon learning those 2 things. A month or so later someone got a group together to PUG Naxx and I went. That place was hella-Hard! We only tried to go for Anub'Rekhan and got toasted BIGTIME! The trash even gave us a helluva time before we ever got to the boss. While it was kind of fun to at least get into Naxx and have a go at the boss, I am not a fan of the kind of killer "you must be perfect" mechanics that they had in Vanilla Naxx, and now in heroics and raids in Cataclysm.
Just because I am not a fan of them does not mean I do not think they should exist. Obviously there are players out there who thrive on that sort of challenge. I have a disability that affects how well and how fast i can process information in new situations, it's even harder if I am under stress. So far in Cataclysm I've gotten to where I am ....somewhat...accustomed to a few fights in heroic mode. Lost City for some reason seems to be about the easiest of the heroics for me (and quite frankly there are still aspects of the various fights I do not fully comprehend. I've learned enough to at least be able to keep from getting myself nuked, even of it does lower my dps.I contribute and we get the boss down. So I do not have the best DPS, I can live with that. Once I have enough experience doing various fights. I have to DO the fight in any given class to really know how to do it, watching a video is not the same for me - they are nice for getting a general idea of what happens, but being there and fighting a boss on a hunter is different than being there as a DPS warrior or as a caster.
Instance runs go so much faster when people know them and when gear is not so much of an issue. I saw that a lot when I would pug raids in Wrath and still see it now when doing instances on my lowbie toons. I love being able to get into a group for Nexxus or Utgarde Keep and rolling thru them very quickly - people may die on occasion, but no one stresses over it and people are almost universally cool about needing on gear when you need it. A fast 15-20 minute run thru UK beats the hell out of a 2 hour long heroic with people dropping from having multiple wipes and people being snotty toward one another. I'll take easy and fun in a game over long, stress-filled bitchfests that heroics tend to be these days.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Battlegrounds!
I just read a post on the Blizzard forums about fail Battlegrounds (BGs) with the title "Why not just let them win?"
I have been in enough BGs when early on it seemed like it would be hopeless only to have things turnaround and become very worthwhile matches.
I've felt the same thing many time, that the BG was a complete wreck, but have learned you just have to either gut it out and stay till the bitter or glorious end, or else just bail and take the debuff. Eye of the Storm is a BG where I've seen a turnaround happen many times. Not so much with Warsong Gulch, commonly known as WSG.
Ah, WSG, now there is a BG with which I have a deep tolerate/hate relationship. The one thing I love about WSG is they put in a time limit on the darned BG. before they did that there were times I was in WSG longer than some old school Alterac Valley battles, and they used to have AVs that went for days! Not saying WSG went that long, but 90 minutes in WSG was too darn long. Sometimes 20 minutes is too long. I've gone thru periods where I would do great in PVP as a tank back in Wrath, even had at least one battle inside WSG that can still make me laugh.
I was in our flagroom along with a druid healer (pretty sure it was a druid) and got into it with a human paladin. We had out own little battle going for a good 5 minutes with me getting healed until the pally switched to the druid only to have all my Prot stuns screw with him then he'd switch to me, and between my stuns and reflects along with my pocket healer we finally downed him. Then he comes back for more! Horde ended up losing that one - it was probably one that seemed pointless, but at least 2 of us on the losing side had a tremendous amount of fun.
Imagine that, playing a game and having FUN!?!?
I have been in enough BGs when early on it seemed like it would be hopeless only to have things turnaround and become very worthwhile matches.
I've felt the same thing many time, that the BG was a complete wreck, but have learned you just have to either gut it out and stay till the bitter or glorious end, or else just bail and take the debuff. Eye of the Storm is a BG where I've seen a turnaround happen many times. Not so much with Warsong Gulch, commonly known as WSG.
Ah, WSG, now there is a BG with which I have a deep tolerate/hate relationship. The one thing I love about WSG is they put in a time limit on the darned BG. before they did that there were times I was in WSG longer than some old school Alterac Valley battles, and they used to have AVs that went for days! Not saying WSG went that long, but 90 minutes in WSG was too darn long. Sometimes 20 minutes is too long. I've gone thru periods where I would do great in PVP as a tank back in Wrath, even had at least one battle inside WSG that can still make me laugh.
I was in our flagroom along with a druid healer (pretty sure it was a druid) and got into it with a human paladin. We had out own little battle going for a good 5 minutes with me getting healed until the pally switched to the druid only to have all my Prot stuns screw with him then he'd switch to me, and between my stuns and reflects along with my pocket healer we finally downed him. Then he comes back for more! Horde ended up losing that one - it was probably one that seemed pointless, but at least 2 of us on the losing side had a tremendous amount of fun.
Imagine that, playing a game and having FUN!?!?
Friday, June 3, 2011
Still cannot stand heroics
I have a very well geared mage, better than my tank. Decided to try a heroic. Got H BRC. Did okay even tho we wiped once on the first boss because the tank failed to clear mobs next to where the boss walks up to ...what is it, a pit or something?.. that he then paths away from. We got extra mobs, wiped, went back, cleared the extra mobs, killed boss, continued on. When we got to the 2nd boss, we tried skipping the mobs at the top above where the boss is, except for the first pathing drakkonid. Didn't work for some reason cause when we went for the boss it seemed like we got the 2nd drakkonid and the mobs from up top. Got back, cleared the top, tried for boss. By this point I think we'd replaced one person who left for some reason between the 1st and 2nd boss. I have a hard time with this fight. Timing on this is a pain in the ass. I was blocking one stream and popped out at around 80 stacks, watched for the debuff to wear off but other drakkonids got summoned/converted whatever and wiped us. We gave it another shot after losing at least one person, wiped, then decided to pass the boss and move on. We got to a bridge where Raz is supposed to pop out and kill all the the mobs on the bridge. Didn't happen, wiped again.
Lost almost everyone. While I was debating on bailing we had a full party again, and had to go back to try the 2nd boss again. I was game for another shot. Next try I ended up popping back into the stream about one tick too soon, got converted to a drakkonid but didn't seem to be doing anything, everyone else got killed, I reverted so I ran back up the ramp to wait for everyone. I think we might have tried one more but wiped again and I just figured screw it, and bailed. Total time spent probably around 2 1/2 hours and only got one boss down - and this on a toon that has gear that can get him into the "new" troll instances, and got thru H SFK on my first run thru it with minimal wipes or deaths.
My feeling here is that I cannot be solely to blame for the wipes, not when I was at #1 0r #2 on the damage meters on boss fights. Heightened difficulty is one thing, but this far into the expansion you would think people could clear heroics a bit easier, hell we did in Wrath and even in some of the BC heroics. Cataclysm heroics an inconsistent mix of difficulty and are not conducive to have me queue up for heroics very often. I can't wait for 4.2 when getting higher gear MIGHT make beating heroics easier.
Lost almost everyone. While I was debating on bailing we had a full party again, and had to go back to try the 2nd boss again. I was game for another shot. Next try I ended up popping back into the stream about one tick too soon, got converted to a drakkonid but didn't seem to be doing anything, everyone else got killed, I reverted so I ran back up the ramp to wait for everyone. I think we might have tried one more but wiped again and I just figured screw it, and bailed. Total time spent probably around 2 1/2 hours and only got one boss down - and this on a toon that has gear that can get him into the "new" troll instances, and got thru H SFK on my first run thru it with minimal wipes or deaths.
My feeling here is that I cannot be solely to blame for the wipes, not when I was at #1 0r #2 on the damage meters on boss fights. Heightened difficulty is one thing, but this far into the expansion you would think people could clear heroics a bit easier, hell we did in Wrath and even in some of the BC heroics. Cataclysm heroics an inconsistent mix of difficulty and are not conducive to have me queue up for heroics very often. I can't wait for 4.2 when getting higher gear MIGHT make beating heroics easier.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Friday, May 20, 2011
I cannot tank heroics...successfully...yet
Gave a shot at tanking a heroic again a day or so ago. I got popped into Grim Batol. I actually like GB, but have done it so few times that I do not have a really great understanding of what all is going on in boss fights. Despite having done the instance several times on a few different toons as DPS in both normal and heroic I was dubious about how I'd fare.
Not good.
We wiped a couple times then the group just fell apart. To be fair, someone was saying they were going to have to leave soon right as I got in - and I came in at the first boss! I gotta say, I was rather confused about what all was going on in terms of adds showing up along with trying to maintain aggro on the boss. Just what you want to hear from a tank, right? Maybe tankspot will have videos that will help, seeing as how I'm going to be doing these instances eventually and I do like tanking. Notice I didn't say love?
Not good.
We wiped a couple times then the group just fell apart. To be fair, someone was saying they were going to have to leave soon right as I got in - and I came in at the first boss! I gotta say, I was rather confused about what all was going on in terms of adds showing up along with trying to maintain aggro on the boss. Just what you want to hear from a tank, right? Maybe tankspot will have videos that will help, seeing as how I'm going to be doing these instances eventually and I do like tanking. Notice I didn't say love?
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Apparently I _CAN_ tank heroics...
...despite having several pieces of gear that are green and lower than item level 333.
I got on my main tonight and figured I'd give another shot at doing a heroic as DPS. I think it was Halls of Origin, but my shaky memory fails me after deciding to do a regular random as a tank this time. We got Grim Batol and it went so well about 3 of us from that group queued up for another regular random, back to Halls of Origin. I think we got a nice chunk of rep since people were cool with taking out extra trash mobs. After we got done one of my guildies got on and we queued up for a regular random, but I did UI refresh right after queuing - so of course while it was refreshing the queue popped and we missed it. I hit the button to requeue us, but failed to make sure it was a regular, so we ended up in Heroic Blackrock Caverns. OOPS!
My equipped gear level going in was iffy at best, after a couple pulls that went OK I decided the heck with lower level tank trinkets and switched to some of my higher level DPS trinkets, putting me at an averaged equipped iLVL of 338, even with a few green pieces one being a 333 level helm and some 318 gloves I seriously need to replace. My blue 316 legs also need replacing ASAP, but I did at least upgrade to some new justice point shoulders right before we queued up.
I might actually be getting back into a tanking mood for WOW again, go figure. And no, the new call to arms for tanks has nothing to do with it. As I'm learning what is happening and what to watch for, the more I experience it the better I'm going to get - especially with better gear popping up and becoming available with rep and BOE drops showing up for low(ISH) prices in the auction house. I think the biggest challenge is going to be getting used to getting trashed by being surprised by completely new elements that have been added to heroic instance boss fights.
So despite my personal misgivings, I stuck with it and I tanked our way through 2 bosses in HBRC despite 2 wipes to the second boss, Corla, Herald of Twilight, the 2nd attempt on her was tanked by a DK in the group who claimed he could do it better than I did. He didn't. I switched back after he left following the aftermath of HIS wipe, I adjusted where I tanked the boss and we took her out ...dare I say this...easily? It took work, and paying attention to pummel some big hurtie spell she she does, but everyone was up to the challenge, including me and we achieved a sweet success. My guildie Cenvai took home the Signet of Transformation (of course I lost the roll, but I'd have probably just given it to him anyway).
I got on my main tonight and figured I'd give another shot at doing a heroic as DPS. I think it was Halls of Origin, but my shaky memory fails me after deciding to do a regular random as a tank this time. We got Grim Batol and it went so well about 3 of us from that group queued up for another regular random, back to Halls of Origin. I think we got a nice chunk of rep since people were cool with taking out extra trash mobs. After we got done one of my guildies got on and we queued up for a regular random, but I did UI refresh right after queuing - so of course while it was refreshing the queue popped and we missed it. I hit the button to requeue us, but failed to make sure it was a regular, so we ended up in Heroic Blackrock Caverns. OOPS!
My equipped gear level going in was iffy at best, after a couple pulls that went OK I decided the heck with lower level tank trinkets and switched to some of my higher level DPS trinkets, putting me at an averaged equipped iLVL of 338, even with a few green pieces one being a 333 level helm and some 318 gloves I seriously need to replace. My blue 316 legs also need replacing ASAP, but I did at least upgrade to some new justice point shoulders right before we queued up.
I might actually be getting back into a tanking mood for WOW again, go figure. And no, the new call to arms for tanks has nothing to do with it. As I'm learning what is happening and what to watch for, the more I experience it the better I'm going to get - especially with better gear popping up and becoming available with rep and BOE drops showing up for low(ISH) prices in the auction house. I think the biggest challenge is going to be getting used to getting trashed by being surprised by completely new elements that have been added to heroic instance boss fights.
So despite my personal misgivings, I stuck with it and I tanked our way through 2 bosses in HBRC despite 2 wipes to the second boss, Corla, Herald of Twilight, the 2nd attempt on her was tanked by a DK in the group who claimed he could do it better than I did. He didn't. I switched back after he left following the aftermath of HIS wipe, I adjusted where I tanked the boss and we took her out ...dare I say this...easily? It took work, and paying attention to pummel some big hurtie spell she she does, but everyone was up to the challenge, including me and we achieved a sweet success. My guildie Cenvai took home the Signet of Transformation (of course I lost the roll, but I'd have probably just given it to him anyway).
Monday, May 2, 2011
Still hating Heroics, BUT....
Oddly enough, as much as I HATE heroics - my view of them in general is that they took most of the annoying aspects of original Occulus to help them design the Cataclysm heroics. For as many times as I've had my @ss handed to me in GB, for some reason I find this to be a rather fun instance. The only boss there I find truly atrocious is the last boss. I would be...chagrined to get that over and over and over again when queuing for randoms as some folks have been posting about on the WOW forums. Kinda glad I haven't been queuing for them.
I've done GB a handful of time in regular, once in heroic mode on my warrior doing DPS as Arms (with decent DPS I might add, not uber great, but cart topping on occasion or close, even in single mob/boss fights). Did not finish 'cause my reactions times along with my gear level at the time, shall we say, were sub-optimal. I got kicked right as I was going to bail out so I wasn't butt hurt about it.
With the new troll instances heroics reworks, I took my just barely geared enough mage into a random (got Zul Gurub) and after some hairy encounters and a number of wipes once we got to fighting Zanzil (not to mention one or two wipes getting there...) I finally decided that Illidan was right, I was not prepared. I told the party then left.
One nice thing about the new instances is that GOOD gear is becoming available at lower prices, and I've able to fidn some reasonably priced epic upgrades so maybe, just MAYBE, more heroics will be in the future. And if they frustrate me too much, there's always Fallout 3: New Vegas!
I've done GB a handful of time in regular, once in heroic mode on my warrior doing DPS as Arms (with decent DPS I might add, not uber great, but cart topping on occasion or close, even in single mob/boss fights). Did not finish 'cause my reactions times along with my gear level at the time, shall we say, were sub-optimal. I got kicked right as I was going to bail out so I wasn't butt hurt about it.
With the new troll instances heroics reworks, I took my just barely geared enough mage into a random (got Zul Gurub) and after some hairy encounters and a number of wipes once we got to fighting Zanzil (not to mention one or two wipes getting there...) I finally decided that Illidan was right, I was not prepared. I told the party then left.
One nice thing about the new instances is that GOOD gear is becoming available at lower prices, and I've able to fidn some reasonably priced epic upgrades so maybe, just MAYBE, more heroics will be in the future. And if they frustrate me too much, there's always Fallout 3: New Vegas!
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Almost ready to venture into Cataclysm heroics
I had several bad instances with heroics in Cataclysm, starting in the beta. I'm not the fastest person on the uptake with understanding what is going on during and encounter aside from the basics like "oops, standing in fire" or "oops, bass just targeted me by name."
I did my first COMPLETE (well almost, we skipped some bossed in Heroic HoO) tonight. The only other heroic I've ALMOST completed was Grim Batol, but the last boss was too much for me and the party I was with. About the time I was going to say "GL, I'm out cause I'm not getting it" i got the boot. That was on my warrior doing DPS as Arms spec. I did great on the trash, and respectable on the first bosses, but just could not get the last boss figured out. being tired didn't help - we had been through a number of players failing/bailing by the the time we got the the end boss.
In HoO tonight I took a chance with my mage Rizzir, who I'm finding fun to play as a fire mage. I hated fire in early Wrath, kept going OOM and getting PWN'd by everything - frost ruled for leveling! Not that I'm great with consistently high DPS, I've got the general sense of how to play a fire mage and was doing near top DPS - then again, my mage is geared on par with my warrior, or slightly better since I splurged on some 'relatively' cheap epic cloth items from the auction house. I'm pretty sure my warrior has only one piece of crafted epic armor.
Still having fun leveling my rogues - one is 62 the other is 75.
I could insta-queue with my warrior, but I just don't feel like tanking....blah. Not sure if the new call to arms for needed specs (i.e. TANKS) will get me more interested, but for now I'm not feeling it, and not feeling bad about it either. There's sooo many quests out there I have yet to get to. I FINALLY finished the Vash'Jir line on ONE of my toons. My highly geared mage of all toons....the quest lines there were fun, but way to long to get the "payoff" of a getting to quests within the *cough, cough* level 80 instance Throne of Tides. I wonder if very many people ever did those quests and actually used the gear they got from them. I might make it a point to try to get my rogues there...but I doubt it.
I did my first COMPLETE (well almost, we skipped some bossed in Heroic HoO) tonight. The only other heroic I've ALMOST completed was Grim Batol, but the last boss was too much for me and the party I was with. About the time I was going to say "GL, I'm out cause I'm not getting it" i got the boot. That was on my warrior doing DPS as Arms spec. I did great on the trash, and respectable on the first bosses, but just could not get the last boss figured out. being tired didn't help - we had been through a number of players failing/bailing by the the time we got the the end boss.
In HoO tonight I took a chance with my mage Rizzir, who I'm finding fun to play as a fire mage. I hated fire in early Wrath, kept going OOM and getting PWN'd by everything - frost ruled for leveling! Not that I'm great with consistently high DPS, I've got the general sense of how to play a fire mage and was doing near top DPS - then again, my mage is geared on par with my warrior, or slightly better since I splurged on some 'relatively' cheap epic cloth items from the auction house. I'm pretty sure my warrior has only one piece of crafted epic armor.
Still having fun leveling my rogues - one is 62 the other is 75.
I could insta-queue with my warrior, but I just don't feel like tanking....blah. Not sure if the new call to arms for needed specs (i.e. TANKS) will get me more interested, but for now I'm not feeling it, and not feeling bad about it either. There's sooo many quests out there I have yet to get to. I FINALLY finished the Vash'Jir line on ONE of my toons. My highly geared mage of all toons....the quest lines there were fun, but way to long to get the "payoff" of a getting to quests within the *cough, cough* level 80 instance Throne of Tides. I wonder if very many people ever did those quests and actually used the gear they got from them. I might make it a point to try to get my rogues there...but I doubt it.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Playing with a "hidden" handicap
I have a handicap.
There, I said it.
I suffered from a traumatic brain injury (TBI) back in 1997 after getting hit by a drunk driver and going into a coma from a fatty embolism (simple description, it's very much akin to a stroke) Ever since then I have had the "wonderful" experience of learning to understand, accept and deal with the lasting effects of the TBI and accompanying PTSD (nice bonus, eh?)
What people do not seem to understand is that having having a brain injury does NOT make you stupid, but it does affect things like memory (speed and reliability of accessing memories) and the ability to process new experiences very quickly, as in, say, the increased difficulty of a heroic boss encounter in a game such as WOW.
The TBI's lingering effects do not mean I cannot learn encounters. I can. It often takes me doing an encounter many times to fully grasp the variety of things that are going on all at once. This is one of the reasons that every time I have attempted to heal in WOW, I have failed MISERABLY.
Tanking, on the other hand, seems relatively well suited beause MOST of the the time, you job as a meat shield is to get the boss to focus solely, or primarily, upon you. When I tank new encounters I rarely consider what is going on with the DPS classes (you know the old saying, if DPS dies, it's their fault). In BC I was able to amass a decent tanking set, yet primarily did mainly normal version of instances and was able to do a rather good job as time went on. I have gotten a decent amount of compliments on my tanking (particulary from high DPS tier geared players for my ability to hold aggro from them) - not to say I'm always perfect. But when I screw up, I admit and ask for advice on what to do to 'not screw up'.
At the moment though, I am burnt out on tanking. I am really enjoying learning how to DPS with my warrior (which I do rather well at , despite people claiming that Arms spec is no good for PVE). My failure tends to come with complex, heavy damage boss fights in heroics. I die first, I die often and I get kicked - usually about that time I am planning on saying my farewells anyway.
Maybe with time and MUCH better gear I can do better in heroics. Though it does seem like a bad loop of a catch-22 situation: you really need heroic gear to do well in heroics.... *SIGH*
There, I said it.
I suffered from a traumatic brain injury (TBI) back in 1997 after getting hit by a drunk driver and going into a coma from a fatty embolism (simple description, it's very much akin to a stroke) Ever since then I have had the "wonderful" experience of learning to understand, accept and deal with the lasting effects of the TBI and accompanying PTSD (nice bonus, eh?)
What people do not seem to understand is that having having a brain injury does NOT make you stupid, but it does affect things like memory (speed and reliability of accessing memories) and the ability to process new experiences very quickly, as in, say, the increased difficulty of a heroic boss encounter in a game such as WOW.
The TBI's lingering effects do not mean I cannot learn encounters. I can. It often takes me doing an encounter many times to fully grasp the variety of things that are going on all at once. This is one of the reasons that every time I have attempted to heal in WOW, I have failed MISERABLY.
Tanking, on the other hand, seems relatively well suited beause MOST of the the time, you job as a meat shield is to get the boss to focus solely, or primarily, upon you. When I tank new encounters I rarely consider what is going on with the DPS classes (you know the old saying, if DPS dies, it's their fault). In BC I was able to amass a decent tanking set, yet primarily did mainly normal version of instances and was able to do a rather good job as time went on. I have gotten a decent amount of compliments on my tanking (particulary from high DPS tier geared players for my ability to hold aggro from them) - not to say I'm always perfect. But when I screw up, I admit and ask for advice on what to do to 'not screw up'.
At the moment though, I am burnt out on tanking. I am really enjoying learning how to DPS with my warrior (which I do rather well at , despite people claiming that Arms spec is no good for PVE). My failure tends to come with complex, heavy damage boss fights in heroics. I die first, I die often and I get kicked - usually about that time I am planning on saying my farewells anyway.
Maybe with time and MUCH better gear I can do better in heroics. Though it does seem like a bad loop of a catch-22 situation: you really need heroic gear to do well in heroics.... *SIGH*
Bots are getting ridiculous!
I did an Eye of the Storm at level 45 with a rogue of mine (thought it would be cool do do it at the lower level), but was appalled at a very blatant example of botting - what else could it be when someone does NO damage or healing and somehow gets the highest amount of HKs AND honor from the BG?
I have increasingly despised PVP in WOW for a long time, in part because I just flat have slow reaction times. I still engage in PVP, but one of the things that I think Blizzard has completely wrong is rewarding the people who are the 'god' of PVP with gear that is stacked with insane amounts of stamina AND resilience. I think that the higher item level PVP gear you get, the LESS resilience you should get with it; and conversely, the beginning PVP gear (crafted gear) should be LOADED with Resilience. This way, you stand a better chance of lasting when fighting people with much higher iLVL gear, and odds are they are gonna wipe the ground with less experienced players anyway. It just won;t be as easy of a cake walk for them.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Took a break from tanking
Playing an MMO when you aren't exactly a people person may seem odd, but I don't play WOW so much for the interaction with other people as I do for the lore related game play.
The only reason I took up tanking at level 70 was to be able to get into instances much faster and see more of what the game designers spent so much time creating. There were soooo many instances in The Burning Crusades and I wanted to see as much as I could, and of course, get better gear!! Same with with Wrath of the Lich King, and it was even more fun as a tank because of how Blizzard buffed the damage a tank could output.
Then along comes Cataclysm.
A phenomenal achievement by Blizzard, but at the same time it leaves me feeling rather...empty about doing instances when leveling from 80 to 85, and especially after hitting 85. In part I think it's because there are so few instances compared to TBC and WotLK. Add to that the dramatic changes they made to the talent tree system.... I guess I was burnt out on tanking. That and getting adequate tanking gear was a pain as I was, and still am, really enjoying being a DPS warrior. Having 3 sets of gear (DPS, Tank & PVP) has always been a drag. I hate to admit it, but I am using quite a few pieces of PVP gear in my DPS set, and I love the DPS I am doing for once! I don't recall what I was fighting the other day, but I got a 50K+ Execute Crit on some quest mob - what can I say, I'm having fun!
The only reason I took up tanking at level 70 was to be able to get into instances much faster and see more of what the game designers spent so much time creating. There were soooo many instances in The Burning Crusades and I wanted to see as much as I could, and of course, get better gear!! Same with with Wrath of the Lich King, and it was even more fun as a tank because of how Blizzard buffed the damage a tank could output.
Then along comes Cataclysm.
A phenomenal achievement by Blizzard, but at the same time it leaves me feeling rather...empty about doing instances when leveling from 80 to 85, and especially after hitting 85. In part I think it's because there are so few instances compared to TBC and WotLK. Add to that the dramatic changes they made to the talent tree system.... I guess I was burnt out on tanking. That and getting adequate tanking gear was a pain as I was, and still am, really enjoying being a DPS warrior. Having 3 sets of gear (DPS, Tank & PVP) has always been a drag. I hate to admit it, but I am using quite a few pieces of PVP gear in my DPS set, and I love the DPS I am doing for once! I don't recall what I was fighting the other day, but I got a 50K+ Execute Crit on some quest mob - what can I say, I'm having fun!
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Some Tanks are idiots
With the onset of Cataclysm I find myself running into groups with tanks who have no concept of waiting or of marking mobs for kill order or CC (or both). That's not to say I haven't run with tome tanks who REALLY understand all that and make running instances a pleasure.
What I find to phenomenally stupid are tanks so dead set on continuing to move forward that they cannot wait for some party member to get a rez, pull a boss then blame the group and quit in a huff.
TLDR: Tanks should wait for party members before attacking a boss.
What I find to phenomenally stupid are tanks so dead set on continuing to move forward that they cannot wait for some party member to get a rez, pull a boss then blame the group and quit in a huff.
TLDR: Tanks should wait for party members before attacking a boss.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Why "The Reluctant Tank"?
When you play a warrior, you will find you occasionally get whispers asking if you want to tank such and such instance. My experience by level 62 was still that instances were unbearably long (dead runs tend to make things last longer ya know). Add to that my experience with "end game tanking" *cough cough* in Vanilla WoW left me with a very poor view of the end game instance community in general. I got into a group doing a Stratholme 45 Minute Baron Run that had been spamming for a tank for some time. I told them from the start that I had very little experience but was billing to give it a shot. Short version: their explanations were not nearly enough to prepare a noob such as I was at the time and they realized - as did I - that they were were not going to make their time limit with me tanking - I was simply too new and they had no patience for teaching a new tank.
In BC things got better. I pretty much held off on doing instances but but I was feeling a little better about myself and was willing to give it a go when I got a whisper to tank Slave Pens. I had an AWESOME, helpful supportive group. i think this helped for me to decide to go tank spec once I hit 70, which I did. Oddly enough, most groups I ran with were rather supportive with tips on positioning, tanking movement, etc. I got my first GOOD Shield off the first boss in SL (we stopped at him because we could tell I would NOT have been able to tank the rest of the instance, not only that, it STILL seemed to take FOREVER to get up to the first boss. I kept at it with my tanking, made some good friend who were super helpful with advice and eventually got my tank geared enough for Karazahn. Unfortunately I only got in there twice during the run of BC, but I DID pull off a decent job off tanking Moroes so that I had enough aggro to get him on me when the main tank died and we (everyone else) burned him down. This was after a couple wipes and some REALLY good advice from the main tank that paid off when he got downed on our third attempt. And no, I got no gear from Kara during BC for my tank 8^(
One of my highlights as a tank in BC was when a fellow I befriended as a level 60 Pally eventually way out geared me with lot of epics and tier gear would a go on runs with me, he would regularly compliment me on being able to hold aggro even with his DPS (and he had some damn high DPS).
When Wrath came along I stayed a tank for leveling since Blizz did a good job of FINALLY upping the pve DPS reasonably well, and I love the survivability. Once I learning the bosses and instances I did pretty good in Wrath. Again, it was all about learning the boss fights and the peculiarities of instances and eventually I was tanking away like crazy, especially after the LFD (looking for Dungeon) tool was implemented.
But now I am face with a new expansion with many (thought not NEARLY as many) tanking choices and what seems like a complete new paradigm for tanking. Or maybe its just a throwback on Blizzard's part.
Lately the only instances I will, and have, tanked, has been Black Rock Caverns. That was only because I had run the place at least 4 or 5 times as DPS and had a reasonable concept of what a tank needed to do. I only tanked it after a lower level tank was struggling (did that on both my warrior and my druid - his only tanking experience too date).
Maybe at this point in the game I am just a little burned out on tanking and instances in general, but until I get more experience in all the instances and can understand WTF is happening on varius bosses, I passing on queuing as a tank.
In BC things got better. I pretty much held off on doing instances but but I was feeling a little better about myself and was willing to give it a go when I got a whisper to tank Slave Pens. I had an AWESOME, helpful supportive group. i think this helped for me to decide to go tank spec once I hit 70, which I did. Oddly enough, most groups I ran with were rather supportive with tips on positioning, tanking movement, etc. I got my first GOOD Shield off the first boss in SL (we stopped at him because we could tell I would NOT have been able to tank the rest of the instance, not only that, it STILL seemed to take FOREVER to get up to the first boss. I kept at it with my tanking, made some good friend who were super helpful with advice and eventually got my tank geared enough for Karazahn. Unfortunately I only got in there twice during the run of BC, but I DID pull off a decent job off tanking Moroes so that I had enough aggro to get him on me when the main tank died and we (everyone else) burned him down. This was after a couple wipes and some REALLY good advice from the main tank that paid off when he got downed on our third attempt. And no, I got no gear from Kara during BC for my tank 8^(
One of my highlights as a tank in BC was when a fellow I befriended as a level 60 Pally eventually way out geared me with lot of epics and tier gear would a go on runs with me, he would regularly compliment me on being able to hold aggro even with his DPS (and he had some damn high DPS).
When Wrath came along I stayed a tank for leveling since Blizz did a good job of FINALLY upping the pve DPS reasonably well, and I love the survivability. Once I learning the bosses and instances I did pretty good in Wrath. Again, it was all about learning the boss fights and the peculiarities of instances and eventually I was tanking away like crazy, especially after the LFD (looking for Dungeon) tool was implemented.
But now I am face with a new expansion with many (thought not NEARLY as many) tanking choices and what seems like a complete new paradigm for tanking. Or maybe its just a throwback on Blizzard's part.
Lately the only instances I will, and have, tanked, has been Black Rock Caverns. That was only because I had run the place at least 4 or 5 times as DPS and had a reasonable concept of what a tank needed to do. I only tanked it after a lower level tank was struggling (did that on both my warrior and my druid - his only tanking experience too date).
Maybe at this point in the game I am just a little burned out on tanking and instances in general, but until I get more experience in all the instances and can understand WTF is happening on varius bosses, I passing on queuing as a tank.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
My intro to WoW
I only started playing World of Warcraft so I could do something with my brother, as we had been in touch too rarely for far too long. My video game experience prior to WoW was limited to Baldur's Gate for a few years until a friend turned me on to Diablo II. I gave a shot at playing that on Battlenet a few times, but discovered that too many of the world's asshats were there (my introduction to ganking, although I didn't know that term for a few years). I started playing Battlefield 1942 at an internet gaming parlor, and there were a number of peole there who played WoW. I remembered my brother showing me Undercity in the game when I'd visited him some months before, so I go the the game so we could play together online - at least I'd know someone and he could show me what to do.
BUT I was SUCH a noob. More one that later.
I've been 'seriously' tanking since sometime early in the Burning Crusade expansion. I did some tanking during vanilla WoW around the mid 40s one time time in Zul Farrak. Luckily the group I was with really knew their stuff and I was an passable meatshield despite know damn little about what I was doing.
I hit level 60 with about 2-3 months to go before the Burning Crusades Expansion. I was till such a massive noob, but I had heard that if you wanted "the good gear" you needed to do the level 60 instances - Sunken Temple (although not techincally a lvl 60 instance, good gear could be gotten there), Strat, Scholo, LBRS and UBRS.
I had the experience of attempting to to tank exactly ONE Strat run. A 45 minute Baron run no less. I had no idea exactly what that entailed and even told the group that took me in as much. Turns out that a Strat Baron run was no place for a new tank. No one had time to to explain anything - hey, it's supposed to be a timed run, but what did I know. Anyway, I was semi-politely asked to leave so they could get a new tank who knew what he/she was doing. I doubt they ever finished. Forming groups in Vanilla was an extremely painful and time consuming affair and my experience with instances was that they were excruciating long as well. The only other instance run I recall doing in Vanilla after htting 60 was an UBRS run, and I recall that run specifically because I got some much needed shoulder upgrades off The Beast.
Lightforge Spaulders. Yes, pally shoulders. And yes, I went into Outland wearing those shoulders. As I was still very gun-shy about doing instances, I had them until sometime in level 61 or so.
I was, at the beginning of BC, still very much a noob. But a new co-worker played WoW and was just great about explaining thing like putting talents primarily into one talent tree to get better results; explained what AP was and why it was important...things like that. I changed my talents to a deep fury build instead of the hodge-podge mix I'd been using up to that point and found thing started improving for me greatly as I progressed through the game.
When you are trying to learn such an important role so late in in the evolution of the game - especially so close to the release of an expansion (I was at level 60 with only about 2 months til an BC)....well, it did not happen. People were too impatient. The general attitude I saw was one of "If you don't know how to do it already you suck, things like that. Not the best thing for someone who was rather withdrawn and in general did not care for people very much anyway. So I quested on my main, a warrior, and on my alts, put the things my friend had explained to me into practice and slowly started getting better while either doing quests with my brother or running around solo.
I really think as the game has evolved there are more people willing to teach and give others a chance to screw up as they learn. My hero is Daniel Howell, better know to the WoW community as BRK. His blog and videos on hunters were, and still are, amazing. I think I'm blogging in part because of him, as a way to POSSIBLY give something back to the WoW community and a way to dust off off my writing skills and share some experiences.
BUT I was SUCH a noob. More one that later.
I've been 'seriously' tanking since sometime early in the Burning Crusade expansion. I did some tanking during vanilla WoW around the mid 40s one time time in Zul Farrak. Luckily the group I was with really knew their stuff and I was an passable meatshield despite know damn little about what I was doing.
I hit level 60 with about 2-3 months to go before the Burning Crusades Expansion. I was till such a massive noob, but I had heard that if you wanted "the good gear" you needed to do the level 60 instances - Sunken Temple (although not techincally a lvl 60 instance, good gear could be gotten there), Strat, Scholo, LBRS and UBRS.
I had the experience of attempting to to tank exactly ONE Strat run. A 45 minute Baron run no less. I had no idea exactly what that entailed and even told the group that took me in as much. Turns out that a Strat Baron run was no place for a new tank. No one had time to to explain anything - hey, it's supposed to be a timed run, but what did I know. Anyway, I was semi-politely asked to leave so they could get a new tank who knew what he/she was doing. I doubt they ever finished. Forming groups in Vanilla was an extremely painful and time consuming affair and my experience with instances was that they were excruciating long as well. The only other instance run I recall doing in Vanilla after htting 60 was an UBRS run, and I recall that run specifically because I got some much needed shoulder upgrades off The Beast.
Lightforge Spaulders. Yes, pally shoulders. And yes, I went into Outland wearing those shoulders. As I was still very gun-shy about doing instances, I had them until sometime in level 61 or so.
I was, at the beginning of BC, still very much a noob. But a new co-worker played WoW and was just great about explaining thing like putting talents primarily into one talent tree to get better results; explained what AP was and why it was important...things like that. I changed my talents to a deep fury build instead of the hodge-podge mix I'd been using up to that point and found thing started improving for me greatly as I progressed through the game.
When you are trying to learn such an important role so late in in the evolution of the game - especially so close to the release of an expansion (I was at level 60 with only about 2 months til an BC)....well, it did not happen. People were too impatient. The general attitude I saw was one of "If you don't know how to do it already you suck, things like that. Not the best thing for someone who was rather withdrawn and in general did not care for people very much anyway. So I quested on my main, a warrior, and on my alts, put the things my friend had explained to me into practice and slowly started getting better while either doing quests with my brother or running around solo.
I really think as the game has evolved there are more people willing to teach and give others a chance to screw up as they learn. My hero is Daniel Howell, better know to the WoW community as BRK. His blog and videos on hunters were, and still are, amazing. I think I'm blogging in part because of him, as a way to POSSIBLY give something back to the WoW community and a way to dust off off my writing skills and share some experiences.
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