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?
Friday, May 20, 2011
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!
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