Dear NCAA

Thanks for putting most of the local teams on television today. Because of that, I was able to take a half day off and make up for the time I wasted waiting for a tank and a healer who actually wanted to run Ahn'kahet this morning. I was talking with another Guildie today who also gets up early, and we both agreed the tanks haven't been that great in the random PuGs this past week.

I don't suppose ol' Soul would mind waking up at 5 AM? ;-)

Tanks for the Memories

Everytime I play WoW, I learn something new. Sometimes my enlightenment is simple, like finding a new location where Titanium Ore could spawn. Other times, it's an admonishment that you're not quite there yet, like the spanking I got when I tried to solo the Rider of Frost in Northrend. I personally prefer the last variety, where I surprised myself by being able to do something -like the time I buzzed Teldrassil collecting the coins of Ancestry with four 80's on my tail and roughly 1k of health left. (Have I mentioned lately that I love Crusader Aura?)

Today's last early morning run through the Halls of Stone produced one of that third variety.

The run didn't start out that interesting; three of us had just finished a Culling of Stratholme run, and I had about 45-50 minutes available. That CoT run was unremarkable, which is always a good thing. (Well, the Druid healer had an annoying tendency to run ahead of everyone else, but I guess he figured I'd rez him if he wiped.) After CoT finished the tank suggested a last run, and both the Mage and I were fine with that.

Our group for the HoS run consisted of: Warrior (Tank), Priest (Healer), Mage (DPS), Warlock (DPS), and Quintalan (DPS).

The first trash mob went okay, but during the second and third a few problems became apparent:

• The tank had issues keeping threat. The Dark Iron dwarves stuck with him, but the Stormforged had an annoying tendency to overshoot him and go after either me or one of the others, which meant I had to lay off of some of my attacks, drawing out the fight a bit further.
• The lock was a Boomkin. The tank had enough problems, but everytime that Boomkin laid an attack in, about a third of the trash would peel off after him.
• The Priest was struggling under the strain. I didn't get the time to inspect him, but I think he had some other issues in addition to constantly running out of mana. The tank told him to let him know if he needed to drink, and then he would only drink just enough to get to 40% before the tank would take off again.

On the fourth trash mob everything hit the fan. The Boomkin had the Stormforged aggro on him, the Warrior tank peeled away from the trash to go chase the Stormforged. The trash didn't follow the tank and aggroed on me instead. The Priest ran out of mana, my bubble expired, and both the Boomkin and I wiped. Everyone else followed suit.

When we all ran back inside, a big fight broke out. The Priest accused the Warrior of being a terrible tank, and the Warrior shot back about the Priest's poor healing. The Boomkin kind of kept quiet, which was smart for him given that he was pulling aggro so much. And me? I filled up my coffee mug, settled in, and watched the show. I had a little over a half an hour left, so I knew that if I dropped I might not squeeze in another run. Besides, it was nice to not be in the middle of a Tank/Healer spat.

Eventually the Warrior had it, and floated a resolution to kick the Priest out. The Priest split before everyone could vote, so we queued up for a replacement. Thankfully, this one was seriously overgeared (I checked), so at least one of three problems was solved.

We survived the rest of the dungeon until we got to Sjonnir. If I had a dollar every time the Boomkin pulled aggro on that boss, I'd have enough for lunch at the Cheesecake Factory. Even the overgeared Priest couldn't keep up, and the tank and Boomkin both wiped.

That's when I became the tank.

Sjonnir started chasing the Mage and Priest back down the entrance, and I overtook him from behind, pulling aggro back on me. All we had to do was last about 10% of the boss' health, and I turned on Righteous Fury and just started wailing away, using Lay on Hands to bring myself back to full health. The Mage turned back and zapped Sjonnir a few times and I just kept going with as many Holy spells as possible until he fell over.

Considering that I was the only melee person left, it made sense that I'd pretend to be a tank for a few desperate minutes. If Sjonnir had more health we'd all probably have wiped, but he didn't. If I had to hunt for Righteous Fury instead of having it on one of my bars, it could have gone bad as well. (Don't ask why I stuck it at the bottom of one of the bars, I had it in the "just in case" corner I usually stick the "summon drake" from The Oculus.)

I once mentioned in a previous post that if you're the only melee in the group left, you become the tank by default. I'd written that when I was doing PvP in Warsong Gulch, but I didn't really internalize that with 5-man instances. I've been in enough groups where the tank wipes and the rest of us follow suit, so having a group survive a tank death in a boss fight is kind of a surprise. By comparison, Quint has less than half of the Health that Souldat has, and even if Quint had similar gear levels but for Ret Spec he'd still be well under Soul's health level. Such a disparity is not good for the fill-in tank, but it doesn't need to be for emergencies. All you have to do is survive.

That is about as much exposure to being a tank as I want. The amount of trust a tank must have in the healer makes me nervous in a PuG. You're much better off being overgeared than relying heavily on an unknown element. However, the point of the group is trust; you trust everyone to do their job so that the team can survive. And you have to trust that if someone fails, they learn and get better for the next run.

Random Musings

None of these rise to the level of needing a separate post, so here they are.

• I've discovered the Joy of Kiting. Paladins aren't really made for kiting, since you preferably want a ranged attack that you can slow your opponent with. My current spell list for a Shadow Priest isn't the greatest for kiting either, since the spells that I've got with a speed reduction (Mind Flay) end once the spell ends. A mage -more specifically a frost mage- is much better suited for this fun little pasttime with Blink, Frostbolt, Ice Nova, Ice Barrier, and Frostbite to play with. I spent a half an hour yesterday kiting bears and whatnot into the range of the Tarren Mill Deathguards while I was in between coats of paint, and although I don't have it quite down yet, it's rather fun watching the Deathguards hack the spiders to bits. (Yes, I was doing this instead of watching paint dry on the front door.) I've read stories about groups kiting bosses all the way to major cities, and I can definitely see the appeal.
• Shadow Priests are more mana efficient than Fire and Frost Mages. I expected a Shadow Priest to be more mana efficient than a Fire Mage, but the Frost Mage surprised me. That Spirit Tap comes in handy more than I care to admit. I haven't tinkered with an Arcane Mage, but I suspect that at this level (low 20's) it doesn't really matter.
• A Mage -particularly one with Ice Barrier active- handles damage better than a Priest. Yes, I know that Priests have the healing spells, but in a PvE questing environment that Ice Barrier spell keeps a Mage's cloth armor (or a sissy robe, as Tamarind on Righteous Orbs puts it) nice and clean.
• Running a Paladin is easier than either a Priest or a Mage. A Paladin -particularly a Ret Spec or a low level Holy Spec version- is a "run up and hit something" type. There's not a lot of variety to the Pally's attacks in the 20's. A Shadow Priest or a Mage, however, has a wider arsenal to work with. Keeping track of those extra spells can be quite a challenge if you're not ready.
• That little Emerald Boar trinket comes in awfully handy soloing 5 man elites in Outland. It's rather nice getting a virtual tank for 30 seconds, allowing Quint a short breather from the steady flow of damage. Too bad the sucker isn't an epic level trinket.

Apparently, I'm Taken

Well, that was a brief bachelorhood.

I am no longer wild and free to chase the winds as I wish, reveling in the solitude among the masses. Quint is now a guilded Blood Elf. Again.

Okay, things aren't going to change too much, because I doubt there'd be any more guildies than me on at 5 AM, but you never know.

The Early Bird Gets the PuG

Most of the time when I play WoW is early in the morning. Sure, I've got the once weekly time set aside to hang with Souldat and his wife, but I've settled into a routine where I play before I have to get the kids up for school. Since I'm up really early to go work out, I slip in some WoW time between 5-7 AM.

When I was on Stormscale (Pacific Time Zone server), that early time was great for dailies. You could get some dailies done, and then the server time would hit the 3 AM reset (6 AM my time in EST) and you could do the dailies again. It was also ideal for exploring; the likelihood of running into a pack of 80's while checking out Elwynn Forest was remote, particularly during midweek.

Ironically enough, I found the same competition for mining resources during those wee hours as I did at other times. Three of us (two Horde, one Alliance) would be duking it out for the same titanium ore in Icecrown, and you got used to being jumped just when you thought the coast was clear.

If there was one drawback to the early morning solo time, it's that the players for random heroic 5-man runs were few and far between. It wasn't an issue when I was handling the regular solo quest work, but now that I'm soloing the instances in Outland and the 5-man quests in Icecrown, I need to work on my gear. That means badges and instance runs.

Switching to an Eastern Time Zone server has it's drawbacks for some solo work -such as the dailies- but it's been easier to use the LFG tool to pull in a few runs. The last time I tried the LFG tool on Stormscale at that time, after about 45 minutes I gave up. When I tried using it for the first time that early on Area 52 --I chose an Azjol-Nerub run rather than purely random for the speed factor (10-15 minutes if you do it quickly)-- I only waited about 12 minutes before I got in and was on my way.

Not bad.

The irony of getting some 5-man runs in this early in the morning is that the pure randomness of the tool is defeated by the lack of players. For example, today's first run (the Oculus) had not only the same two guys from the Exodar server I saw yesterday (including one well run Druid tank), but another repeat player from a separate server. After a relatively painless run through the Oculus which included the occasional joke about needing coffee, we stayed together for a second run, this time through Utgarde Keep.

I had to beg off after Utgarde, but the quality of the PuGs in the 5 AM slot had me impressed. Compared to the lunchtime fare, the early morning runs are more about getting in, getting it done, and getting out. (Yeah, I know, insert tasteless jokes here.) I had yesterday's Azjol-Nerub run take twice as long as usual because the three guildies in the group had decided to go for the Hadronox Denied achievement without telling the other two of us, and that fight included both the healer and one DPS dying and running back to get into the fight.

If I had to choose between the two, I'd go for the early morning runs. They feel less like kids on lunch break at college and more like parents squeezing in WoW time before getting ready for work. I can get 2 to 3 runs in fairly quickly, get some questing done in Outland, and then I'm ready to start the day.

(It's still amazing that Dalaran is never empty, even at 5 AM. Org is dead then, but Dal? No way. I wonder whether Blizzard is planning on trying to spread the Dalaran concentration out a bit in Cataclysm, but I have no idea how they'd do it.)

Hellscream's warsong

So you may have had a surprise when you zoned in to Icecrown Citadel this week. Everyone has a awfuly nice buff applied to them. What does this buff do?

The current (and we'll get this in a bit) is this:
Hellscream's Warsong
The warsong of Hellscream fills you with strength, increasing total health, healing done and damage dealt by 5%.

Now you can look at this two ways.

1. zomg, they nerfed icc? casuals are ruining teh gaem!
2. A buff to actually help us down that bastard of a boss (I'm looking at you, Saurfang) we're stuck on ? SWEET!

If you can't tell, I'm more of the mind set of the second option.

The nice thing about about this change, however, is that Blizzard gave you the option of declining the buff if you so choose. You can go on about your business as the hardcore raider and do things the hard way.

Where as currently with the group of wonderful people I raid with, we are more casual. We tend to bring alts or offspec people along to make due with what we've got. And it works for us. Gear for your offspec is obviously not going to be as good as your main spec, but you don't need 5 tanks for a ten man. So this buff will help us out and help progress us through the content.

Do I feel cheap for using the buff? No. I'm glad that Blizzard is giving everyone the opportunity to eventually see the content. I was one of the lucky ones in vanilla to see every raid but one. I was not one of the lucky ones to see all of the raids in BC. But I'm doing my best to make sure I see every raid in Wrath.

And to get back to a mention I made earlier in this post, the buff will eventually change to a 30% increase over time. What does that mean?

1. Guilds that may be struggling will be able to progress pretty easily.
2. PUG groups will have an easier time bringing under geared members.
3. I'm going to have a shit ton of HP! Almost FIFTY NINE THOUSAND hit points. Muahahaha

Um... Oookay....

I don't pretend to have done a boatload of heroics*, but today's quick and simple farming run through Azjol-Nerub had to be one of the stranger ones I've been in.

We had:

• Three players whose entire conversations consisted of "?". Not once, not twice, but at least 20 times. I mean, I can understand if you're puzzled about one thing, but when you're doing "?" the entire run, I have to wonder what's going on. While we were getting our buffs ready, one of the guys said "Pit of Saron?" No, dude, the sign said "Azjol-Nerub".
• The healer died early in the first trash before the first boss, and the tank kept pressing on anyway. I was the only other party member with rez capability, and the tank engaged the trash mob before I could start my rezzing. The healer runs back, and what does he do? Runs right in front of the next trash mob before he's not even back to 100%. ::sigh::
• The tank had some major difficulty holding threat. At one point I looked at the damage meter and found to my surprise I was on top (Paladins + Glyph of Sense Undead + Scourge = extra damage), but I knew I wasn't pulling the threat. I suspect the Hunter with his pet, but I've no proof.
• The tank died on some trash right before Anub'arak, and we're all standing around, puzzled. "Where did he go?" I asked. He was right behind me when we were swimming to shore, and the next thing I knew he was lying dead on the shore next to me.
• The healer was running around not healing anything for a while in the Anub'arak fight, so I had to heal myself and the tank for a minute or so.

I've seen my share of strange group behavior, but this bunch put the fun in dysfunctional.

*Considering what I've bought with badges and had left over, I had to have had at least 120 badges when that "100 Badge" achivement popped up. I wonder if the count got messed up during the transfer between realms.