OMG Warrior tanking...

... is pretty much the same as it was, with the addition of a few new abilities in the mix like victory rush and rend. 

Like Q in the post below, I also got DTK as first dungeon I did.  The first pull was a little shaky getting the mobs on me because I had some trouble generating rage right off the bat, but a quick shout fixed that.  The second pull was a little hairy as well because the DPS in the group got all antsy in their pantys and starting dpsing stuff before I could even get a thunderclap + shockwave off.  After that though, it was back to normal speed and we were done in there with no wipes or deaths in about 15 minutes.  There was, however, one noticible difference - I did the most damage done.  Muaahahahaha!  Watching vengeance scale is amazingly fun.  My attack power just goes up and up and up and up...

I'm definately noticing how aggro is going to be a little shaky.  I look forward to the cries of the dead dps.  They haven't quite learned how to assist the tank - but the current dungeons and design don't FORCE them too.... yet.

So much to learn and wrap my head around with all the changes.... so many new glyphs and a few new skills.  The new all plate armor bonus is sweet, as well as the mastery bonuses.  I'm up to 50k unbuffed HP, which makes me wonder if I should think about swapping out my one stam trinket for armor or avoidance.

I also noticed that dwaves get a +archaelogy bonus.  Which is OK, I guess.  It's still not enough to make me not want to race change to a worgen as soon as I can.  I mean, come on... a warrior with charge, intercept, intervene, heroic leap, AND a racial sprint - as well as a resto shaman arena partner who can now cleanse mage polymorphs and ice novas!?  Mmmmmmm.....  dead mages.

All in all, wonderful changes and it's fun to learn your class again.  And to all of the nay sayers out there... shut it.  We don't have the right gear (+mastery points) yet to make your spec shine.  It's all new and different and you don't like it.  I get it.  But shut up and give it a go and see if you like it.

Oh, and the new downloader is rather spiffy!  I loaded up while it was still downloading with out much issue and off I went.

Oh, and one last thing... I purchased my 310% flying speed last night which lets me give up on Yogg +1.

And there's finally someting NEW in the game again!

 *cue up Choir*

Getting to Know You All Over Again

Well, I got Quintalan set up talentwise, reestablished my glyphs, checked my gear, and tried out Drak'Tharon with three other guildies.  In a taste of lowbie runs, there were three Pallys --one of which was the guy not from our guild as the healer-- and two as Ret.  We also had a Druid as tank, and a Lock rounding out the DPS.

What did we learn?  Oh, joy.

We had an incredibly slow run through Drak, all of us critiquing our stuff.

"XXX Druid ability has a CD now.  Do not like."

"WTH happened to Art of War?"

"Flash of Light and Holy Light flip-flopped.  Have to rework our buttons."

"I feel completely naked; I have no idea how I'm doing."

"Oh oh.  This tanking ability is broken."

"I'm just seeing 300, 400, 500, then 9000 damage at a time.  This just feels wrong."

Nobody died, which was a bonus, but it wasn't, well, thrilling.  Holy Power is definitely the key to making some decent damage, but it's very clumsy right now.  The cooldowns are s-l-o-w, and I felt like I was a fresh 80 doing miniscule damage.  Art of War seems to take forever to proc now, and when it finally does it always seems to be on the last hit of a mob.  Big whoop.


I know what I'm going to be doing the next couple of days:  reading.

Hmmmm.... About that patch

Note to self:  The patch is big.

My background downloader had taken care of the 4+ GB over the past few weeks, but I was surprised that after that installation, another window started up for first a 50MB and then another 1.4 GB download.  I've no idea if there's a fourth download behind this one, but hold onto your hats.

EtA:  No, there wasn't another gig lurking behind that fifth one, so we're good to go.  The "you can play now" sound pinged halfway through the last 1.4 GB download, but since the servers were down, it was a moot point.

All in all, lots of "Deathwing this" and "Deathwing that" files were unpacked along with the plethora of assorted other data.

Hot, hot...muy caliente

Mages are going through some pretty significant changes, though some argue rotations aren't that much different. I say, "Ha!"

Although Fire mages, which is proving to be by far the most exciting tree in the class in Cataclysm, has a much more dynamtic approach to fighting than it has before. With such spells as Improved Scourch and Improved Flamestrike, mages will be burning everything in sight while on the move. Not many classes can boast cast-as-you-go flexibility, but Fire Mages not only get a full array of spells that allow movement, it does insane AoE DPS. Proof below:

Cataclysm Beta - Fire AoE Madness + Flame Orb!



I've read that the new Fire Orb isn't living up to expectations, but the other changes have demonstrated amazing results (see Elitist Jerk's spoiler at the bottom of the first post here for Spell Coefficients). However, there are issues to take into consideration especially when running with a group:

1) CC involved pulls break when AoEs are used.
2) Hot streak doesn't proc as often as it does now.
3) Mana efficiency is a major issue currently in the patch (which isn't expected to change much when it goes live).
4) Fire has too much emphasis on DoTs and AoE.

The debate is pretty hot and heavy at Elitist Jerks, bringing up burning issues such as boss encounters in raids where single target DPS is lacking in Fire, the lack of Fire Streak procs, and issues with Combustion. Arcane may prove to be the winner for single target, but given its complex rotation we could see more go Frost on the duel spec. Indeed, Frost is taking an interesting turn boasting higher coefficients than fire on EJ's number-crunching charts. So it might be one of those things where a mage goes back and forth, which isn't much different now for heroic modes in ICC, but something to consider based on playstyle, group composition and boss strategies.

I can tell you this, I'll be at the dummies for a while to determine the best build and rotation until I determine the best of both to maximize my DPS. I'm certainly no min-maxer, but like any other girl I'm all about whats muy caliente.

Death from the Skies

I've been trying to split my time between Tomakan and Nevelanthana, slipping in some face time on Q and other toons.  Tom, as another Paladin, is familiar ground, although the queues for DPS or healing are equally long enough right now that there's no real reason for me to keep healing with him for the time being.  The only way for me to get to an instant queue is to start tanking, and that's just not me.

Now Neve, she's been a refreshing change of pace.  What I discovered with Mages is that I really like being able to find a corner, just out of silence or knockdown range, and just go to town.  As I described it to someone the other day, "it's a lot of fun to be raining frozen death from the skies."  The upside is that you don't get impacted by debuffs that the melee DPS do, and you're able to use AOEs to maximum effect.  The downside is that you're the one that gets the aggro if a mob comes up from behind the group, or worse, if the tank gets incapacitated.

Yes, I know about watching threat.  Mixing it up as a Ret Spec Pally has taught me plenty about watching Ye Olde Threat Meter.  Repeat after me:  Omen is my friend.  In fact, I probably watch that as much as I watch Healbot when Tomakan is on Holy Spec.

There's one little thing about being a squishy Mage that's a bit disconcerting, and that's when you get aggro unexpectedly.

The scene:  Zul'Farak.

I'd had a really lousy work week, so I took a late lunch on Friday to get a run in on Neve.  I ported in to Z'F, noted that we had only ranged DPS for a change --two mages and a lock-- we started up the first passage.  This wasn't Neve's first run in Z'F, so I knew about zapping totems in between casting Blizzard.  The first few pulls were shaky, with the Warrior tank needing a few extra seconds to get a good lock on the mob, so I paced my casting to match him.  We made it through the first several mobs and two of the bosses --the zombie creator and the basilisk tender-- when things started to go bad.

The trash pull was pretty typical, and I was in the middle of casting Blizzard.  Threat was under control --somewhere in the low 40s-- when all of a sudden I noticed the mob running at me.

"What the--"

Just as the first blows landed, the threat skyrocketed and only then did WoW announce that I had aggro.

Bubbling and using Frost Nova to keep the mob in place for the tank, I was cursing up a blue streak.  "Are any of you also experiencing lag issues?" I asked.

"Nope."  "Not me."  "Our server was laggy an hour or two ago."

"I've got some," I replied.  "The threat meter didn't show anything until they'd already started hitting me."

"I'll make sure to keep you bubbled," the Priest said.

The next trash pull had the same result, and at least I got a good workout doing the "run to the tank, squishy mage!" routine.   

Okay, I thought, I'll just wait until about 10 seconds into the fight so that I'm certain the tank has a good lock on the threat.

I was standing in the back, the AOE highlighted on the ground and waiting to drop, when it happened for the third time.  Dammit, I didn't even DO anything!

This time, the tank had gotten Hexed.

Then the healer also became a cute little frog, hopping around the desert sand.

The other mage and the lock were more than happy to let me keep aggro as they both scattered, leaving me to bubble and then Ice Block for ten agonizing seconds.

Well, I thought, I survived that.  What's next?

As I've said before:  don't tempt the WoW gods. (You'd think I would have learned that by now.)

Once the tank reacquired threat, another trash mob came wandering into range and aggroed on the lock.  The tank tried to peel their threat away, but he was Hexed again.  This time, the blow was fatal.  We all had a good laugh about it on the run back, and I really really dialed it down for the rest of the run.  You've seen the Mage using Frostbolts + a wand in substantial portions of a 5-man?  That was me in Z'F that afternoon.

Moral of the story:

Squishy + Lots of AoE + Too much trash + Aggro (whether by hook or crook) = Baaad News

And that is something that the melee DPS Pally doesn't have to worry about.

Release Date Finalized

Cataclysm will drop on Pearl Harbor Day --December 7th-- this year.

Let the countdown commence!!

EtA:  Thanks for this goes to a fellow guildie, who found it and posted it first on her own blog.

Lag spike

As this expansion wanes down, I'm finding myself more and more in the position of raid leader.  This is not something I've got much experience doing, nor am I particularly comfortable doing so.  That being said, however, I've been curious about how to approach performance related topics during raids.  And even more importantly, when should a raid leader overlook a mistake?

Now, if I remember back to previous guilds I have been a raider in, I've got a wide variety of leadership at both ends of the spectrum.  I've had a former Marine who's now a highway patrolman, and a female college student who just wanted to have fun in game.

The former Marine, as you can imagine, was a gigantic, complete, and utter dick at times.  Ok, well most of the time.  He was hard-core.  He was a former raider in everquest, and we all know from the glory stories every everquest player has how much this entitles him as a badass.  His approach to when a member of the raid messed up was to halt the raid, and wait for the guilty to fess up and apologize - sometimes 15 minutes would pass.  He'd be nerd raging into vent, and once somebody spoke up, he shifted back to being a less-vocal dickhead.

He could give this guy a run for his money...
(Warning - offensive language and mildly offensive crudely done animations)


I think most rational people would not put up with that leadership style for very long, however.

This one the other hand seems much more friendly.  The raid leaders pick a cartoon voice to imitate, and this video features Mickey, Goofy, and one of the South Park kids.  It gets the job done and guild members get a good laugh out of it.
(Warning - also contains some offensive language)


So I'm trying to find a balance between the two, and figure out what, when, and how to approach things like members standing in a fire or hitting killing spree right before a mechanic that requires you to move and subsequently kills you.

This type of problem wouldn't exist, however, if players took more responsibility on themselves to learn fights and positioning.  If a mistake was made, call yourself out on it, apologize, learn from it and move on.  What ever you do, don't blame lag or some odd non-existent bug that got you killed when your character is clearly not lagging - you just messed up.  And it's OK to admit it - faking reasons why the situation was beyond your control to avoid the clearly avoidable encounter mechanic just makes your fellow guild members lose respect for you.

That being said, I'd like to hear a few grand stories of how you've wiped an entire raid.  Here's one of mine:

I'm on my way on my vanilla raiding character (rogue) to my second ever time in ZG, and I get to see new bosses I've never seen before.  I was so excited.  I zoned in, asked where the group was and they had just killed the tiger boss and were handing out loot.  I had no clue where the tiger boss was.  I just mounted up and followed the path of destruction and eventually found them right as they were coming down the ramp out of the tiger area.  I realized as rode up, however, I somehow got aggro on a pack the group must not have killed, because I had a nice little train of mobs following me... So I vanished to hopefully lose aggro.  Nope- they went straight for Mr. former Marine.  As you can imagine this set him off with the quickness - it was rather funny though.  "Who the F was that!? I know it was a rogue!  I SAW YOU VANISH!"

Pimp My Purse

Howdy, my fighting, fearless friends. As this is my first post among you, let me introduce myself as a quiet, gentle mage who farms mats late into the night, wades through Dalaran sewers in search of wayward potions of Tuskar proportions, and enjoys walks on the beach preferably with someone I like.

With that said, let us begin with a topic near and dear to my heart--money.

Yes, we females love money. Mostly because one can find satisfaction without all the necessary gibber jabber other things require. But don't fret you fine specimens of testosterone. Even male orcs can be sexy too. Think of it, you in Cataclysm with your 310 mount all paid for by your economic virility and her perched on top of Deathwing Lair waiting for someone to give her the ride of her life. Yes, that can be you with a pimped out mount carrying a heavy purse and hot babe. To prove it, I'm going to include a video where not only can green pectorals be entertaining, but said pectorals can actually induce undulating monetary ecstasy by simply following this fellow-blogger's direction on how to make gold with Jewelcrafting and Enchanting in less than 10 minutes. You read that right. 10 minutes!

Alas, there is one thing that is critical...well, two things: 1) use the tools he recommends, and 2) timing is of the essence.

First, macros and add-ons take much of the work and simplifies it similar to a microwave is to hot pockets. He provides links to the add ons and instructions for macros.

Second, timing, timing, timing... It can't be said enough. With Cataclysm around the corner, you want to make sure items like epic gems are sold now. Make sure they're cut and make sure to use cuts people would want to buy (i.e., haste/spellpower, strength, spellpower, etc.). The blue quality gems sell best uncut, frankly. I know he has a few cut, but honestly you can make a lot more selling them as mats for professions and more so right after Cataclysm comes out. Remember, people will be leveling their worgens/goblins, so they will seek the Auction House for mats to level their professions.

Okay, this may not be the magey-goodness you expect, but you can't deny its yumminess. Nosiree. Like me, you too will drool and gasp in awe as you learn how to make 1,500 gold a day spending only 10 minutes of your life in the game. Say it with me... YEAH, BABY!

Stay tuned for my next installment, where I discuss "How to contend with burnt-hair-smell as a fire mage in Cataclysm."

Woo! Happy Birthday to PC

Yep, we're coming up on our first year anniversary on Sept 29th!

I'd like to thank my co-poster Redbeard, and even though Satyana has been MIA from the blog for a while, I'd like to thank her for her contributions as well.

And most importantly I'd like to thank the readers and the wonderful people who take the time to reply.

I wasn't so sure we'd be as successful as we have been. 

And I'd also like to welcome our newest contributing poster!  Welcome to Ehna!  I'll let her do her own introduction, but I believe she'll make a great addition to the team!

I'm looking forward to all of the topics Cataclysm will bring out, and all of the exciting changes in store!

Intentionally handicapping gameplay

There's all sorts of ways players intentionally inhibit themselves, and I'd like to touch on a few that have bugged me recently.

Character control

We've been running Ulduar 10 hard modes in an effort to acquire a 310% mount before Cataclysm is released.  A few members of the guild are very very close to getting Glory of the Ulduar Raider finished
up.  I, myself, am only lacking one achievement, which we just attempted for the first time last night and got three solid attempts in - making it to phase two of Yogg'Saron +1.

Doing these hard modes makes me realize a few things.  There is NO WAY a keyboard turner can complete some of these achievements.  You just can't... 

Case in point, we have a few players in our guild who actually DO keyboard turn. (I find this to be more prevalent on PVE servers where you can lazily run around with out having to look for incoming attacks).  And we struggled for three nights on Firefighter.  One of our tanks happens to keyboard turn.  So when shock blast is about to go off, he turns, starts to run and promptly drops dead.  And that same player has to execute a left turn, forward run, right turn just to dodge cold flame on Marrowgar.

/facepalm.  Ok, fine I guess I won't get to try out my new pve fury dps spec.  Back to tanking...

And another quick pet peeve... if you have to run from something, RUN.  Don't backpedal, don't keyboard turn yourself around - use the mouse to turn and then strafe (you can still move at full speed doing this) or just quickly face the opposite way and run your happy ass out of the bad stuff.

Socially
 This is a multiplayer game at its core.  Sure, you CAN do most things in the game solo, but for all of the good stuff (raids, pvp, dungeons) you will need to interact with people.  The best way to do this is find a guild.

But you don't want to join a guild because you're not good enough?  How do you expect to improve on your gameplay?  It doesn't just happen naturally

For example, you learn very very quickly not to use Hand of Reckoning in a group setting if you're not the tank.  A new player would assume that this spell does damage and it's OK to use in your rotation.  And that new player would never change his mind if he were not exposed to a group environment where you learn how to properly apply your class skills.


Beyond that, you make new friends and acquaintances.  Developing your social skills are good, albeit they're internet social skills...

Having friends in the game can really help motivate you, too.  I probably wouldn't have finished out my nether drake on my warrior (third nether drake grind now) were it not for a friend wanting to do it and joining up with him.  And we're even working on getting random reputations built up - things I never though I'd do.  Because frankly... it sucks.  Rep grinds just are NOT fun.  However, having a friend there to idly chat with and crack jokes really doesn't make it so bad.


Mentally


"I've seen everything there is to see in the game because I'm a hard core raider and there's nothing left for me here."  Or perhaps, "I've played this game since launch - it sucks.  Xyz new game will kill warcraft."  Or even "This will be my last blog post for a while, I've just lost interest in playing the game."


BULL SHIT.


I hate that sort of overly dramatic whiny nonsense.  Get over yourself.  There's nothing left for you in game?  That's fine, to each his own.  But I don't care to read about how bad you think the expansion will be and how your flavor of the month class is going to be nerfed and you can't figure out what the next class of the month will be.


SHOW SOME ORIGINAL THOUGHT.  There's tons of stuff to do in the game.  Level an alt, try out the other faction, finish leveling out your trade skills, play at the auction house, pick an achievement and try to get it.


I'm tired of reading about people who are stuck in the pre-expansion lull and whine about it.  This is the first time where end game as been so readily available to the average player.  Have you conquered all of the raids and dungeons in the game to date?  If not, find a group and set to it.  


Say you have actually conquered everything in game as far as raid / dungeon content goes.  That's fine too.  Pick a raid achievement and get it done.  You'll get a spiffy reward.  And you may even have fun doing so.


Don't get yourself stuck in a rut where you focus on the negative.  

So the moral of the story is: Nobody likes a negative nancy, level 72 death knights, or gnomes.

A Cure for the Common Ganker

I started writing this post about two or three times before I decided I wasn't going to write about pugs.  I could return to my regularly scheduled grumblings another time, but this post will be pug-free. 

(You're off the hook, Mr. "Gnomer-is-so-boring-and-I-spend-so-much-time-yawning-that-I-forget-to-tank.")

I was on Neve, working on some quests in Hillsbrad while waiting for the LFD queue, when a thought struck me.  "You know," I said to a fellow guildie, "this has to be the first time I've leveled in Hillsbrad without constantly looking over my shoulder."

Old PvP habits die hard.  When I first showed up with Neve in Hillsbrad, several months ago, I was completely unnerved by the Alliance characters just blithely passing me on the road.  After having spent my formative WoW years on a PvP server, I was used to ganking as a way of life.  If you were out farming for ore, you kept a close eye on your surroundings before you stopped and picked that nugget of Iron up.  Even when you got flying in Outland and Northrend, that meant you had to watch the skies as well as the ground.  You could be out questing at 3 AM server time --Stormscale is a Pacific Time Zone server and I live in the Eastern Time Zone-- and found yourself caught from behind while working your way through Stromgarde Keep.  After a while, you get twitchy when you go through different locales, wondering where the next attack is coming from.

Switching to a PvE server does help eliminate that inherent nervousness, but I think what really helped in the long run was leveling on the Alliance side.  No, I'm not talking about some great kumbaya moment about how we're all one great happy family, but rather going out and leveling in unfamiliar places.  Redridge Mountains.  Darkshore.  Dun Morogh.  Loch Modan.  Wetlands.  Westfall.  Azuremyst and Bloodmist.  All of those places are strange territory to this Hordie, and the lack of opposing faction toons finally allowed me to relax and enjoy the environment.

After that experience in low-ish level areas, returning to Hillsbrad on Neve was almost a non-event.  I saw a few Alliance toons heading up to Alterac, but since I didn't have the PvP flag turned on, there was nobody to worry about.

Except for the fellow Hordies who thought that Neve needed company or something to protect her from the big bad Murlocs.

Now, if I could only figure out how to attack people on my own faction....

Whispers in the Dark

Have you ever had that feeling where people are talking about you behind your back?  Perhaps you developed that sense in middle school, when rumors could sweep through your classmates before you even knew what happened.  Or maybe you were clueless then, but in office politics you have to keep an ear to the ground, lest you be swept aside by some conniving young punk a few cubicles down.

In real life, that feeling is often accompanied by the looks you get from others while they're huddled together.  WoW, however, doesn't have that visual cue.  You have to rely upon actions or words instead.

Before you ask, I don't intend to talk about guild drama.  There's enough posts out there on the subject by other bloggers that you don't need me to chime in.  And to be honest, I avoid guild drama like the plague.  Sure, I like to know the whys behind a move within the guild, but that doesn't mean I want to inject myself into the drama.

What I meant was in relation to instances.  In raids, you have Vent (or equivalents), but not in a regular old 5-man pug.  Maybe in a heroic Northrend instance you expect silence, but in the lower level instances you expect people to talk, to say they need to drink, and to discuss strategy.  Unless the entire group is composed of people at the high end of the level range, you simply aren't OP enough to wing it.  And if people start doing some bizarre behavior, you can bet that there's some discussion going on behind the scenes.

Take a recent experience in Maraudon, for example.  Thankfully, Blizz cut Maraudon into chunks for LFD, which makes it easier to run.  This particular run was the Orange Crystals wing, which ends at Razorlash, and the party consisted of three guildies from another server (tank, healer, and hunter DPS), a lock, and Tomakan (me).

The first sign of trouble was when the lock and hunter died a couple of trash pulls in.  From what I could tell, the hunter pulled aggro on some of the mob, and that subsection of the mob killed both of them.  I kept expecting the Warrior tank to yank the mob back, but he instead he pressed on.  I rezzed the lock, the healer rezzed the hunter, and the two guildies ran on to catch up with the tank while the lock and I drank.

I expected something to be said in party chat by then, but it was eerily silent.

We got to the oozes and dispatched them without much issue.  The tank headed left to the next trash, and I engaged just as I realized that there was nobody else behind us.

The other three had engaged the oozes on the right instead.

By the time we got back to the others and finished off the oozes, the lock had died again.  The healer rezzed the lock and then ran on ahead with the rest while the lock and I drank.  I don't know what was going on in the lock's head, but I was detecting a pattern.  The healer was behaving more like DPS, and I was spending some of my mana keeping both myself and the tank upright.  I checked the roles, and yeah, the healer wasn't me.

What was more worrisome was that the tank seemed blissfully unconcerned about trying to pull back aggro when someone else acquired it.  I know all about the "you yank it, you tank it" concept, but this was different.  At one point, I got aggro and I popped Hand of Salvation and stopped hitting, but I kept aggro.  I bubbled, and I still kept aggro.  Standing there in the middle of the mob with nowhere to go and waiting for my threat to go down was an exercise in frustration, especially when the hunter was also pulling aggro, the tank seemed to be on auto attack, and the healer was jumping around and popping Holy Nova.

Somehow, we made it to the end and defeated Razorlash.  I was typing in my standard "thanks for the group" when the tank and hunter ran onward, obviously going to Celebras.  Whatever, I thought, and followed along.  I could use the extra XP, after all.

Well, Celebras wasn't the end.  The tank and his guildies kept going, and it was obvious by now that they wanted to take out Theradras herself.  I hadn't signed on for this, and the only time party chat was used was when the lock died for the third time and the healer said "I'm not rezzing you any more."

"Send me a heal now and then," the lock replied.

I grimaced and kept going.  I could have taken the easy way out and dropped, but I wasn't going to leave the lock alone with these clowns.  Besides, their asshatery hadn't really risen to my "I'm dropping group" threshold.  The mobs got tougher, and they started getting silence effects.  The way the healer was jumping around and attacking meant he was well within range for being silenced, and I knew it was a matter of time before the mobs got big enough for us to wipe.  Right at a choke point that happened; the tank pulled two groups, and about 20 seconds later that was that.

Almost immediately the three guildies dropped.

Maybe they just did it on a spur of the moment, but to the lock and myself it sure felt like they were leading us on until we both bit it.

"They had to be on Vent together," I told the lock.

"How so?"

"There was no way they were working all this without there being a chat going.  And since nobody paused to type, they had to be on Vent."

"I think they had it out for me.  The priest hardly healed me at all."

"He hardly healed anybody.  I was healing the tank as much as he was."

"Crap."

I now know why some people cringe when they see several people from the same guild in a LFD pug.  If they're talking on Vent, doing their own thing, then they're not really participating in the group.  This ain't exactly a formula for success, especially when you're one of the people being ignored.

How do you fix it?  Be more open.  Don't play like this is a private club.  If it were, you wouldn't need extra puggees, right?  On the flip side, don't ding and drop.  People hate that, and it gives your guild and your server a bad name.

In short, don't make a pug run into all about you.  It's a team, remember?

For the Darkspears!

The Darkspear Trolls are kind of the bastard stepchild of the Horde.  They were kicked out of Stranglethorn Vale by their own race, they had a home until Zalazane took over, and Vol'jin now hangs around in Orgrimmar as Gilligan to Thrall's Skipper.  ("Right-o, Little Buddy!")  At least he got to hang around with the Wrathgate event, whereas Loth'remar wasn't even invited to the party.  I guess Sylvanas was afraid he'd try to pull rank on her or something.

Well, Vol'jin finally got up the gumption to go after Zalazane and kick him out of the Echo Isles.  He sent out requests for aid to anyone and everyone in the Horde, and we came by the thousand.  When Quintalan made it to Sen'jin Village, the crowd had noticeably thinned, which was just the way he liked it.

Nothing like the sight of your character leading
a pack of Troll Volunteers into Sen'jin Village.
(Venomhide Raptor Not Included.)

The Retaking the Echo Isles event was part Wrathgate, part BG, part Raid, and thoroughly enjoyable.  Sure, you're buffed to the point where you won't take any damage, but you actually get to participate as part of a group in one of these Lore events, not as a single toon.  This was a real undertaking, and Vol'jin and Co. impart a degree of seriousness to the event that is very welcome.  The entire event could have turned into an excuse for bad puns and terrible jokes, but by keeping the tone serious I think Blizz hit this out of the park.

When Vol'jin asked for the aid of the spirits in his undertaking, he made it plain his motives were for his people.  In that respect, it was an eerie echo of the end of the Wrathgate event, where an inconsolable Thrall is in the throne room of the Undercity, and he's talking to Saurfang the Elder about how all his hopes for his people have just been dashed.  Vol'jin, like Thrall, is thinking about his people first, the way a good leader should.  It's a lesson that Varian and Garrosh --and to a lesser extent Sylvanas-- have yet to learn.

It would not surprise me in the least that a major theme of Cataclysm is one that was learned at the end of the Battle of Mount Hyjal:  we have to all hang together, or we will most assuredly all hang separately.  To that end, history points out that people on rival factions who have fought together for a common cause do not think of themselves as enemies.  If Blizz wants to emulate history a bit, all of those people who fought in Northrend alongside the Argent Crusade are the perfect group to stand up to the ongoing war between the factions, saying that the fighting has to stop if the mortal races are going to save the world from Deathwing.

Wooot!

First picture of warrior tier 11 concept art.  And best of all, no PIGS ON THE SHOULDERS!!

Loregasm!

"This is a freaking Loregasm out here!"

That was how someone in Gen Chat described the chaos surrounding Senjin Village last night.  I haven't seen framerates that low since Ruby Sanctum opened, and almost never in an area not called Dalaran or Orgrimmar.

I will freely admit that I avoided the High Tinker's call on my Alliance alts, but that's not due to any Horde bias.  My head hurt after watching framerates in the upper single digits while I was playing as Neve, and I didn't want to deal with that again.

Now, for few short comments about the Vol'jin's call to arms:

• I loved the opening letter.  It was well written and spiced with a lot of true troll flavor.  You got the sense of "we're tired of being shoved out of the way, and we're not going to [expletive deleted] take it any more from Zalazane and his dark magic!"  If I've the bank space, I'm going to keep that sucker around for a while.
• I thought it interesting that we got to ride bats when tossing the frog-spies onto the markers in the Echo Islands, and it was all done without a Forsaken NPC in sight.
• The sight of riding into Senjin at the head of a group of Troll recruits on raptors was really cool.  "Don't mess with the voodoo, mon!"
• The integration of the hidden Troll Druids into the lore was well done.  Since the Trolls were finally going to take back the Echo Isles and defeat Zalazane, they felt they could finally come out in the open and join Vol'jin.
• There was a lot of annoyance that only L78 and up could finish the quest chain, and I can't say I blame people for that.  Here's the vital part of lore being added to, but a chunk of the WoW populace would be unable to participate.

When I run the quest chain as Q and on the Alliance Alts, I'll write those up.  But for now, this has me pumped.  We had the teaser with the Tauren speaking of the power of the Sun in Thunder Bluff and the Highborne showing up in the Temple of the Moon, and now there's this as an appetizer.  I can't wait until the next changes happen.

EtA:  Apparently the Take Back the Echo Islands Event is broken environment-wide.  So I haven't missed anything by not having Q run through the quest chain yet.

EtA:  It's fixed!

Finding a place to call home

So what is it about Warcraft that feels right for any individual player?

Is it a faction?  Maybe it's your chose faction?  Or perhaps you feel most at home playing a certain class or role.  I'm sure it's a combination of all of the above.

What about a literal place you call home in game?

One of the main differences between the Alliance and Horde main cities is the fact that there's housing.  Of all of my time playing as Horde and spending so much time being bored in Orgrimmar, the only place I could really call home is the bank roof or perhaps the rock next to the palm trees and mailbox outside the bank.

The Alliance cities however, seem to have an abundance of housing, albeit most of the doors in Stormwind are shut.  And I spent some time riding around the main cities recently looking for a spot that would feel the most homely for my character.

I'd like to first introduce you to my main character.  Deftig the proud Dwarf warrior.

Rawr!!  Fierce, ain't he!?

I found a spot that I think suits my character quite well.  Firstly, it's in Ironforge... and he's a Dwarf.  It just fits.  Additionally, I seem to prefer Ironforge to any of the other Alliance main cities.  I'm not sure why, perhaps it's because I worked in an iron foundry for a while myself, or the fact that it's centrally located and most importantly you don't have to take any fall damage when you port there and run out of the portal chamber (as opposed to Stormwind jumping off the mage tower, or falling down the side of the city in Org) - I don't know what that bothers me,  but it does.

The spot I've picked is in the Military Ward part of the city, and it's right between Craghelm's Plate and Chain and Timberline Arms.  Can't pick a nicer spot that that...

Riiiiiiight here

So with out any further ado...

Come on in!

Main room properly decorated (click to read text, I made it a bit small)

Upstairs

Yep, this house has it all; good location, perfect decorations, great neighbors, and it's quiet most of the time.

So what spot is home for you?  I'm looking forward to seeing some replies and hopefully some blog posts detailing your own homes in game, and the reasons why.

Paladin Sends Mage Alt Into Shadowfang Keep! Film at Eleven!

So what are you looking at?  Can't a guy send an alt into a 5-man without commentary?  Sometimes, you just want to stop playing your main for a little while.

Oh, right.  Most of my alts are Paladins too.

Well, I was up way late last night with sleep nowhere in sight*, so I got on WoW.  Instead of clicking straight through to Quintalan when I selected the Area 52 server, I paused.  My mage was staring back at me, with her Blood Elf snarky attitude, daring me to pick her instead.

Why not?  And why not actually try her on an instance?  At L26, she's ready to go, and I think I know enough about instances to handle ranged DPS.  ('Just keep yer threat down, willya?')  A place like Shadowfang, which is a straight shot without lots of trash coming at you from behind, seemed the perfect first instance.  Well that and that it's fairly short, and at L26 Neve is right at the maximum level for the dungeon.

I queued her up, and proceeded to wait about 1/2 hour for a group to assemble.  In that copious time, I

• Conjured up about 100 Food and 100 Water, ready for when people needed it.
• Cruised through the Barrens and Mulgore, working on the Exploration achievements for each.  After months of riding the Thalassian Mount and Charger, a hawkstrider just doesn't look right.  (Neither would a raptor, for that matter.  A worg?  Now that'd be interesting.)
• Practiced on sacrificial raptors in the Barrens.  It had been months since I'd done anything with her other than level Tailoring and Enchanting, and I needed to get back into the swing of it.
• Danced with the Flight Master in Camp Taurajo.  Hey, if you're gonna go, go out with a bang, right?

When the LFD tool finally assembled a group and we ported in, the instance was very nearly over before it began. 

I started buffing people with INT, and asked if anyone needed food.

"Do I look like a Mexican?" the warrior DPS snapped.

I'm still not exactly sure how, but I resisted my almost immediate urge to /drop group or /smack him for that crack.  "You look like an orc to me," I finally responded.  I made a mental note of the timer left on vote kick, because I wasn't screwing around with this guy.

At last the Warrior tank moved forward, and we got going.  He pulled the first group of trash, and I mentally counted out the time where I felt comfortable with his aggro lock, ran forward, and....

HOLY CRAP!  WHAT THE HELL AM I THINKING??!!

I immediately burst Frost Nova and skittered back to the edge of the group, where I remained.  Every chance I got, I found a corner to cast from, watching my threat the entire time.

Because I'd never run Neve through an instance before, I was pleasantly surprised when Healbot came in handy for her.  You'd not expect a healing add-on to give any extra boost to a decidedly non-healer, but when you right click on a member of your group on the Healbot bar, it's the same as using a macro to assist whatever they're attacking.  Very handy indeed, and saves me a key binding.  Decursive saves me another slot, because Remove Curse is used very heavily in Shadowfang Keep.

For the most part, I managed threat well; in fact, the only time I pulled threat was when the tank died, and being the one dishing out the most damage, I was the one that the mob aggroed on.  Scratch one squishy Mage.  The rest of the group finished off the mob, so it wasn't a total wipe, and the Tree was nice enough to raise me once the fight was over.  Not that I can't run back in Shadowfang, but let's face it:  a Mage is armored with glorified tissue paper, and wandering mobs are not soloable by a Mage.

The fight with Arugal, however, was a bit of a problem.  The tank left him on his spot at the top of the steps, and I couldn't get a good line of sight to cast at him without getting far too close for comfort.  Looking around for somewhere, anywhere to go, I saw the top of the steps that you entered with.  I ran over and up the steps, and I was in range for casting.  That was very considerate of Blizz to set that up for ranged DPS that way.

My only regret?  The mouthy DPS dropped before the kick timer expired.  He was earning a vote kick throughout the instance, but I never got the chance to initiate one because he dropped after the the tank death incident.

So, what did I think of something decidedly non-Paladin?  Not bad at all.  Once I got over my initial urge to go in there and mix it up in melee, I learned the joys of staying to the rear and keeping an eye over your shoulder.  You have to manage Blizzard --even if it is off cooldown-- because of the mana bite it takes.  You also have to stock up on mana potions, because you might just end up with a tank that won't listen to anyone and will just keep pulling.

I do have big issues with being so squishy, but I guess that's something I'll have to live with.  At least I won't feel guilty when I see her in the startup screen.

*The allergy medicine I was taking left me wired to the point where I couldn't sit still and read.  Not fun.

Don't forget your Swiss Army Knife

In this era of role silos, I’ve found that I like playing the jack-of-all-trades.

This isn’t exactly a revelation to anyone who has read our blog the past year or so, but I’ve found that leveling new Paladins on the Alliance side has reinforced that attitude.

I’m the guy who actually likes handling the stairs on Drak’Tharon:  I can heal myself, use Righteous Fury and Consecration to draw aggro, and do enough damage by myself to keep the scourge from causing issues with the crew down below before Phase 2 of the fight.  Healer getting overwhelmed with debuffs or damage in a scrum?  I can step in and plug the gaps as needed.  Tank losing aggro to the ranged DPS?  A quick Hand of Salvation or a pull using Righteous Defense will drag that trash back into threat range, and a bubble will drop the threat right off of me, enabling the tank to reestablish control.  Garfrost’s stacking debuff hitting everyone hard?  Frost Aura will take a bite out of it.  Those Ymirheim Flamebringers blasting everyone with AoE over in the Pit of Saron?  Interrupts, Fire Aura, and Holy Wrath will stop that.

The bag of tricks that a Paladin has is an eerie echo of my own personal set of tools for work.  I might not be the most knowledgeable person at my job, but I’ve got a wide set of homegrown tools that will assist me in whatever is thrown my way.  By comparison, every Pally has the ability to heal, tank, and DPS right out of the box, but it’s the application of those various little abilities that let a Paladin really shine. 

When was the last time you saw a Ret Pally switch out of Ret or Protection Aura to help mitigate damage?  There are plenty of opportunities to do that in places such as Razorfen Downs, The Old Kingdom, the Scarlet Monastery, Halls of Lightning, and Pit of Saron, but why doesn’t it happen?  Because the theorycrafters say that’s not optimal DPS?  Why don’t Ret Pallys help out more with an occasional debuff removal?  Because they’re in their own silo?  Believe me, having run as a healer, if someone wants to assist with the occasional Cleanse, go for it.  Don’t overdo things, because it’s not your primary role, but if you want to help out, a zap or two of Cleanse in the middle of your rotation makes my job easier and lets me concentrate on the tank more.

As an example, I was in Razorfen Downs with Tomakan last week.  Tom’s reached that point where his Holy Spec gear isn’t being replaced fast enough, so he has mana issues.  Rather than burden a group with Tom being underpowered, I queued him up as DPS and switched to the 2H Heirloom Axe.  However, it was obvious that the healer and tank were struggling with the ranged DPS pulling aggro, so I pitched in with some debuff clearing and an occasional HoS or Righteous Defense to help out.

After about 10 minutes, the healer finally spoke up.  “Tom,” he asked, “are you cleaning debuffs?”

“Yeah,” I said.  “I’m guilty.  I wasn’t going to say anything about it, though.”

“Oh, that’s fine.  I’m having lag problems, so by the time I see it pop up it’s already gone.”

The next instance that night was Scarlet Monastery, and I was doing the same routine:  clean debuffs when I can work it in, and help with crowd control without stepping on the tank’s toes. 

About halfway through the instance the Priest healer piped up, “I don’t believe it!”

“What?” the tank –also a Paladin—asked.

“Paladins who clean their own debuffs!  Not one but two of you!  That never happens!”

You know, maybe it should happen a little more often.  Working as a team means acting as a team, not just confining your actions to a specific set of keyboard strokes. 

How to effectively tank the Lich King

I had to explain this to a fellow guildee last night, so I though it would make a good post and great information to any tank coming up on the LK fight.

First, you have to decide what role you're going to fill; Main tank or off tank.  And this decision actually has a lot to do with what class you are, and how good of a player you are.

You want situational awareness.  There a LOT going on during this fight, and you've got to keep track of a lot as one of the tanks.

PHASE 1 (LK 100% HP)
Main tank engages LK and positions him.  LK will spawn wave after wave of ghouls.  It's your job to pick up and hold aggro on these as well as the LK.

Offtank picks up the Shambling Horrors as well as one or two of the Ghouls.

Main mechanic - Necrotic Plague - stacking dot that thins out the ghouls and horrors. The plague jumps targets, and as it does it gains a stack becoming more powerful.  It's up to the raid to manage the stacks and make sure it does not fall off.  It's also the job of the healers to make sure this DOT does not tick on a player as it will kill them instantly (you have only a few seconds to get into the proper position for it to be cleansed off you and it jumps to a new target).

TRANSITION PHASE 1 (LK 70% hp)

Everyone moves to outer ledge, finish off horrors and ghouls if you have any, and then lose the disease by having a player get out of range of everybody else and cleanse it off.  Here's where it gets tricky for the tanks.  The spirits that start to spawn do a conal silence effect.  This means your tanks are going to be silenced - this also means they cannot taunt.  We chose to bypass this by having the main tank stand off to the side out of the cone and taunt mobs to the off tank.  This allows the main tank to freely engage the LK at the start of phase 2 with no spirits also beating on him.

PHASE 2 (LK 70ish %)

This is the hardes phase, due to the RNG factor of Defile placements and well as valkyr paths.

Main tank engages LK and the entire group moves to the middle.  Off tank must be careful with positioning as you will likely have spirits up still.  Make sure you don't silence your raid.  A Valkyr will spawn and select a target - all dps must move to kill the Valkyr before she drops a fellow raid member off the platform.  Stuns and snares DO work, make sure you apply them. 

During the Valkyr, one raid member will be targeted for Defile, which puts an aoe where ever the player happens to be.  As the main tank has the LK targeted, it's help full to call out who's going to get hit, and hopefully people can move away from them ASAP.

As a tank, the main thing you need to be concerned with during this phase is placement of the LK as close to the center as possible with out getting in defiles, as well as dealing with Soul Reaper.  This deals 50.000 shadow damage to the tank and increases the LK's haste by 100% for five seconds.  If you're not prepared for it, you will more than likely get instagibbed.  Blow what ever cooldown you have to live through this.

Warrior tips:

 I find as a warrior tank that you can take 3 Soul Reapers before you need to worry about having your off tank pickup the LK.  On the first one, blow Shield wall, second pop Last Stand, and on the third pop your corroded skeleton key (4 piece tier 10 bonus works too) and enraged regen.  After which you will be out of cooldowns and should call for the off tank to pick up the LK right after you get the fourth Soul Reaper (you'll take the damage of the debuff, but will not have to worry about surviving the haste buffed LK).

DK Tips:

You are a one man army.  This is all you!  DKs are perhaps the best suited tank to deal with Soul Reapers.  If you're a good little DK and are specc'd into the blood tree, you're golden on this fight.  Dealing with Soul Reapers is cake, because you always have a cool down up and don't have to worry about another tank taunting.  You can chain your Vampiric Blood, Anti Magic Shell, and Icebound Fortitude and have them come off of cooldown in time to continue popping them.  (It's rather OP that the Anti Magic Shell makes you immune to the shadow damage suffered by Soul Reaper)

The off tank in this phase should help kill the Valkyrs after his spirits are dead.

TRANSITION PHASE 2 (LK 40%)

Everybody off the platform again and get into the same setup as on the first transition phase, where one of the tanks taunts spirits to the other one.

PHASE 3 (LK 40 ish %)

Main tank drags LK to the complete edge of one side of the map, and the off tank drags any remaining spirits on the platform and finishes them off with the DPS. 

Main tank waits for vile spirits (Can't miss it, LK stops and raises Frostmourne and spirits come out of the sword.) and then hauls ass to the complete opposite side of the map.  Off tank should run around and try to soak up any of the spirits heading for raid members.  Rinse and repeat until LK is down to 10% at which point he kills all of you, and then you get your free kill after being resurrected by the NPC.

Through the Looking Glass

While I was waiting for LFD last night, I was mentioning to Soul about how similar --yet different-- the questlines are between Alliance and Horde.  I've not done a lot of quests on Tomakan as I've been using the LFD tool a lot, but I have done several quest chains in Ashenvale, and I'm partway through the Shady Rest Inn chain in Dustwallow.  What continues to interest me is how essentially the same chain can be viewed through two different lenses.

Take Felfire Hill for example.  The Draenei simply can't believe that they traveled this far just to have a Legion outpost nearby, and want to eradicate it.  While you're cleaning out the mess of demons, the secret plans for the assault on Forest Song drop, and you are then sent to wipe out the Dreadlords.  You see the quest entitled "Never Again!" and you know how important it is for the Draenei to eliminate the Legion.

Sounds like a perfect fit for the Draenei, but until you see the Horde side, you can't help but think that the quest chain was custom designed for the Alliance.

The Orcs, however, are outraged that this group of demons managed to survive.  They have nothing but disgust and hatred for their former masters, and want to destroy them at all costs.  When the plans drop for the assault on Splintertree Post, the Horde questgiver gives you the quest "Never Again!" with the orders to eliminate the Dreadlords.  The Horde will never be subject to demons again, and you believe it.

Same quest chain, two equally valid --yet different-- viewpoints.

Another comparison is the Shady Rest Inn chain.  For the Alliance, you're given a quest to check up on a relative, and when you arrive in Theramore you discover that there was a fire, and the wife and kid of the relative died.  Your job is to investigate the fire and bring the perps to justice, because the Alliance's laws will be upheld.  Contrast that with the Horde:  You enter Dustwallow Marsh and pass by this burned out husk of an inn, with the owner wandering around dazed.  He's human, but not flagged as an enemy.  Well, you think, what the hell happened here?  You arrive in the Horde outpost in Dustwallow and are pulled aside by a questgiver.  Thrall, the giver explains, has received word about the fire at the Inn and he knows that because it's on the border of the Barrens the Horde is the main suspect.  Thrall is anxious to keep the peace, so your job is to investigate the fire to demonstrate the Horde's good faith in maintaining the truce.  And if it does turn out that Horde people are implicated, show no mercy.

The same questline begins with completely different motivations:  Alliance is personal/legal, Horde is diplomatic.

Now that that's out of the way, I want to drop a big gripe about the LFD tool:  lack of context.  So far as I can tell, there are no quests or common ground for the opposing faction in the Deadmines, Ragefire Chasm, or Stormwind Stockades.  Sure, there's an achievement involved, but with LFD nothing highlights the lack of context quite like those three.  If you're Alliance, the Searing Blade means absolutely nothing to you:  an Orc is an Orc is an Orc.  To the Horde, the Searing Blade is serious bidness:  they want to return to the "glory days" of being Fel Orcs in the Burning Legion, and will stop at nothing to overthrow Thrall and the rest of the current Horde leadership.  Likewise, I had never heard of the Defias Brotherhood until I started leveling an Alliance alt.  "Big whoop," I said.  "A bunch of thieves.  Try the Scarlet Crusade on for size instead."  But for the Alliance, the Defias represents a real threat to the existing order, and have a nasty ol' surprise in store for leveling characters.

Don't get me wrong, I like the LFD tool.  It allows solo artists a chance to check out instances they ordinarily would have a difficult time getting into.  From a lore standpoint, however, I have to wonder about the dungeonmaster achievements gained via the LFD tool.  There's no context for several of the instances, and there never will be.  What I'd like to see is a separate achievement, highlighting all of the quests that touch on an instance, and have a separate achievement for that.  Call it "Contextual Obligations" or something similar, emphasizing that your toon has been involved with the lore leading up to the instance.

(EtA:  Cleaned things up because, you know, I need an editor.)

Did Aragorn have these problems at Helm's Deep?

When I was in high school, laser tag was in its infancy.  A few places had opened across the country, and one in my hometown had popped up by my senior year.  That winter, one of the two physics teachers put together an outing to go the laser tag facility, and I found out about it through word of mouth and signed up.

The equipment was heavy, somewhere in the realm of 30 lbs./13.5 kg, and consisted of a jacket, a gun + backpack, and a solid blast helmet worthy of Star Wars.  The were two towers that contained the "flag" that each team was supposed to zap, plywood and carpet obstacles, and a couple of bridge and upper level areas.  Above the entire arena was an observation deck, where you could watch other people when they were playing.

Sounds an awful lot like PVP Battlegrounds, doesn't it?

Well, except for that part about the observation deck.

Unless you have your own observers who act like they're watching Rocky Horror Picture Show or Showgirls.

I was on as Quintalan yesterday for a bit in the afternoon, which was unusual for a Saturday.  I wasn't planning on doing anything much, just some fishing that I'd promised myself I'd do to provide some haste chow and fish feasts for the guild.  (Hey, it's an excuse to fish, what more do you need?)

Well, one of the guildies asked if anyone was up for a battleground.  Since she and I had been in quite a few 5-man runs the past couple of months, I whispered her that if she didn't mind having a creaky wheel tagging along, I'd go.  After all, I have no PVP gear to speak of, and haven't really PVPed in a battleground since Quint was in the mid-40s.  That lack of experience didn't deter her at all, because without another word she popped up the invite and I accepted.

We queued up with another guildie and waited for the BG to pop up.  Knowing my luck, I figured we'd end up with something I knew absolutely nothing about, like Isle of Conquest, but I was surprised and pleased to see Arathi Basin appear in the load screen.  This, I could deal with.

Except for the [expletive deleted] death knight who took his first death at my hands personally, and spent most of the rest of the game sending Armies of the Dead to chew on my group's position.

It was then that the first spectator appeared.

My son wandered over to see what instance I was in, and he said, "this is different."

"Yeah, it's a battleground."

He watched me pursue a shadow priest for a moment.  "Is it like tag?"

"More like having to capture and hold your position."

"Oh!  Like Axis and Allies!  Or Civilization IV!"

"Well, a lot quicker than that."

He watched me some more.  "You died."

"I know."  I sat there, waiting for the rez so I could get back into the fray.

I ended up not lasting that long.  "You died again."

"Thanks.  I noticed."

Arathi Basin over, we queued up again and got Warsong Gulch.  By now, the girls had come by.  "Watcha doing, Dad?"

"He just died," my son said.

I glared at the screen.  "Playing in a battleground.  You see, these people are on my side--"

"You're playing as Quintalan?"

"Yes."

"So they're Horde, right!  Go Horde!"

"Yeah, go Horde.  And we're trying to--"

"Hey!  You've got a flag!  Are you playing capture the flag?"

"Yes, it's like tha--"

"Wow!  I love that game! Hey Steph, Dad's playing Capture the Flag on WoW!"

"When can I play?"

I took my eyes off the screen to shake my head at my youngest.  "You're not old enough yet."

"Dad," my son said, "you died again."

"I know that.  Look, I can't see with your head in the way."

"And again.  You die a lot."

Now I remembered why I don't play WoW very much in the afternoons on the weekends.  And I longed for the days of laser tag, where the spectators were separated from the players.

You want me to WHAT?

"So, do u tank?"

That little question completely changed the tenor of my afternoon.

I'd had kind of a terrible week at work --if you come back from vacation to a boatload of stuff to do, you'll understand-- so when my Dwarf Paladin hit 20 I resolved to queue him up for Ragefire Chasm.  Friday seemed an excellent day to do just that, so I dialed up RFC and selected DPS for ol' Balthan.

Three minutes later, an image of a Searing Blade Cultist greeted me.  Such a short queue was surely a good sign.

While we were buffing, the Gnome Warrior tank asked, "Are there any quests here?"

"I have no idea if there are any for Alliance," I replied.  "For the Horde, there's plenty.  Thrall doesn't like these guys for some reason.  No idea why."

"Oh," he said, and then proceeded to tank the first couple of mobs.

Then he vanished right before the next room.

"You have got to be kidding me," the Night Elf Priest said.

"Yeah, tell me about it," I replied.

Then the Priest dropped his loaded question.

"No, I usually DPS or Heal.  But I guess we could clear this room."

"Gogo."

Thankfully, there aren't a lot of tanking tools available at L20 that I didn't already have, so I started pulling one mob at a time.  Did I mention that there weren't a lot of them available at L20?  Well, did I also mention that I never bother to configure those tools on my keys, since I don't tank except in a rare emergency?

Good thing I was at the high end of the level range for RFC, so I didn't have to worry too much about health, even with a bunch of green gear and no heirlooms.  I was kept busy taunting the mobs when they were peeling off me and going after the Warlock, but mercifully nobody died.

Another tank ported in (another Gnome Warrior), and we resumed our regularly scheduled run.

Well, sort of.  This tank wouldn't let anyone drink, but kept running onward.  You know, when three other people in the party are telling you to wait, maybe it's a good idea to do that.  I had the impression that if we'd been past the time limit for the vote kick option that tank would be gone, but we'll never know.

The tank dropped before one last boss, and the Lock joined him.

This left myself, the Priest healer, and a Mage.


The Mage laughed.  "Go on, B.  We'll cover you."

So, once again Balthan the Reluctant Tank took the lead, tanking the last boss.

Honestly, it wasn't that bad.  Of course not having a lot to use helped immensely, but the worst part of the job was yanking back threat from ranged DPS who lay down a boatload of damage.

I filed this under the heading of "extended emergency tank duty", and washed my hands of the affair.  I'm much happier letting another person run the tanking duties while I DPS or heal, but it was definitely an interesting experience.

If you come across this post and you're looking for some basic info on threat and tanks, Lara over at Root and Branch has a great Threat Primer for Beginning Tanks.  For DPS who wonder about how to handle the various tank classes (as of 3.3.5), Souldat has a great post on his opinions about when to hold back and let loose with your DPS in pug 5-mans and raids.