To boldly go... Oh, who am I kidding?

This morning, I managed something I've never done before, and not in a good way.

I queued up for my morning run, and I got the Old Kingdom as my destination.  I was surprised --and pleased-- to find nobody immediately dropped group when we finished porting in.  Surely this was a good omen.

The tank even put up raid markers on who he wanted us to kill first in those Ahn'akar pulls before Nadox.  He took his time, and we didn't wipe on that trash.  As one of my guildies likes to put it, there's something wrong about an instance where the trash hits harder than some ICC bosses do.

As runs go, it was pretty average.  Two of us wiped on aggroed Twilight trash (courtesy of the Warlock), but otherwise nothing special.

Until we got to the Herald.

We settle in, the Warrior tank runs up and starts the fight, and I pop Avenging Wrath and close.  One swing and...

I pulled aggro.

With one swing.

On a boss that a tank had a good four or five seconds to get a lock on aggro.

If it wasn't for the fact that everybody else in the house was sleeping, I would have been shouting at the top of my lungs.  As it was, I kept a good stream of invective going.  "WTF is that?  How the hell did that happen?  It was just a Judgment!  I was behind him, dammit!  I wasn't even the first DPS to close!  I didn't even do anything like Divine Storm or Consecration!"  And then... "Oh crap, HoS is still on CD!"

I stopped hitting and bubbled, allowing the tank to draw aggro back, but I've never had that happen before in a boss fight.  Even with tanks geared as new 80s.  After that, I had to essentially reduce myself down to auto attack to keep from pulling aggro the rest of the fight.

Talk about embarrassing.

Anyway, last night I got Tomakan out of the garage to run him through the LFD tool.  He's about at that stage where most of the LFD instances are ones where I've been in several times, with one lone exception.

And naturally, what pops up into view?

Gnomeregan.

If you check Quint's list of achievements, you'll find Gnomer in there.  However, that comes with two caveats:  I was L80 at the time, and I cheated and bubble/dropped down to the bottom level.  Therefore, I had almost no clue about how Gnomer was for a properly leveled toon.

We ported in, and immediately the tank says "I don't know anything about this place."

"Me either," said the Warlock.

"Don't look at me," I said.

The tank wasn't thrilled.  "Does anybody know their way around here?"

"I do," the DPS warrior said.  "It's been a couple of years, but I've been in here before."

Well, something was better than nothing, so off we went.

Gnomer would make MacGyver think he'd died and gone to heaven.  Bots, wires, gizmos, airplanes, and all sorts of stuff littered the place.  Infected and/or irradiated Gnomes everywhere, with Dark Iron Dwarves at the bottom of the city --with land mines!-- ready to help out ol' Thermaplugg.

Given that we didn't really know where we were going for almost all of the run, I got plenty of chances to drink while the guide poked around in different directions.  Still, I was eternally grateful that the Lock didn't rely upon Spirit Tap to replenish his mana.  I even whispered him my thanks, to which I got a "lol np" in return.  Dude, you have no idea how nice it is that I can concentrate on the tank and not worry about getting my mana depleted after every trash pull.

There was only one brief moment of uncertainty when a wandering group of trash aggroed on us while we had our hands full with another bunch, but in general the run was pretty smooth from a fighting standpoint.  After Tomakan's last fail pug, having one go smoothly was a pleasant surprise.  Hey, and I even got a few items I could use (as in, I remembered to Need the items I wanted).

In a bizarre way, I'm looking forward to the Scarlet Monastery.  I know those instances, and every time I think I'm done with that place some random quest sends me back there for another item.

So you're minding your own...

...and you suddenly get smacked in the face. 

Do you:

A) Dust yourself off, apologize for being hit, and ask for another

B) Act like nothing happened, as this occurs a lot

C) Try to maintain some civility while letting the person know their behavior is not acceptable

Well this happened to me more or less. But before I get too deeply into the post, I want to explain a few things. 

First off, I have three level 80 tanks, and have experienced current (at the time- my pally only did Nax and EOE) "end game" content with each one.  I have a fairly damn good idea of how to tank.  Secondly, I hate hate hate hate the Halls of Reflection.  Some sort of swear word literally escapes my lips IRL when that dungeon pops.  Most of the time I will leave group immediately instead of waiting around to see if it's a fail (as you will see why in this post) and it's not becuase I doubt my ability to actually tank it. I don't care to rack up a repair bill for a dungeon where the only thing I need is two frost badges and my level of faith in the average LFD random guy is not that great. 

Also, I use tidy plates addon with the threat plates theme.  This turns name plates into a threat meter, and I can see if I have aggro on a target (name plate is small and green) or if I need to get a taunt in on something (large red name plate).  This gives me a very very good idea of what's going on and if I need to get some hits in on something at range.  And lastly, there's a guild member who just joined recently and could really use some loot out of there in the group with me.

So here we are... in the LFD que quickly followed up by the HOR loading screen.  #($*&#)(@#.
Group makeup: Warrior tank (me), Warlock (guild mate), Hunter, DK, Druid healer.

The events start and the group immediately heads for the corner.  I tell them I'm not going to be doing the corner, and to come back to the door.

Everything is going OK on the first few waves of trash.  I had to blow shield wall and last stand at one point because I was getting no heals.  On the first boss, everybody dies, but the boss manages to drop as well.  So the group runs back in, gets loot nobody needs and starts up for round two.  Two waves towards the second boss I just drop from lack of heals.

Chat legend:
Green = guild member
Black = Me
Grey = Pug
Demonikal = Fuckin retard DK
Silfactor = mouthy druid
(I'm not going to black their names out, because if they want to be internet tough guys they can deal with having their names posted)

So everybody runs back in and the group chat looks like this:

It's a fact.  I can't tank when I'm dead.  Yep.  So the group continues past the second boss.  I try to pull the giant out of the hallway to avoid getting the extra adds, not that they're a big deal, it just takes longer.  Halfway down the hall the DK charges in and pulls aggro.  /shrug  Ok... whatever.  The DK then says "lol fail tank" 

And at that point I had had enough - it was a combination of a bad day at work, not wanting to even be in HOR, and retarded dps that can't even assist a tank.

So I'm tired of the whole childish "lol fail tank" crap when t he healer is the one having troubles and I get called names?  I'm so glad I'm stuck in the dungeon with you guys.  (Also I find it very funny the guy was playing a female character in a fantasy game and was so quick to toss out that derogatory comment.)

Five minutes later:

Haha!  Asshat DK got kicked.  Feeling a tad guilty for making the rest of the group I said I was sorry, and immediately regretted it.  In fact, I wasn't sorry.  I wasted 5 minutes of your time.  Deal with it.  So I get called an "inconsiderate fuck" for actually choosing option C above.  What the hell?  What does it matter?  It matters because I don't have to put up with bullshit, and I chose to take a stand.  Grow a pair and stick up for yourself, man!

I'd rather have time to charge mobs and have a lot of space to work with as opposed to having mobs come around the corner when my thunderclap and shockwave are on cooldown and instagibbing a party member.  And most importantly, I'm the tank.  You follow me.  That's just how it works.

So we're on the last icewall before the dungeon is over, and the red pug actually says something intelligent!  The funnies thing, however, is the DK who was kicked from the group was bothered enough by the kick that he actually made a character on my server just to talk some more smack.  And he had the cleverness to name it (MyCharacterName)isgay. 

Rest assured, Demonikal, I never doubted your ability to display what a gem of a person you truly are!  Just slap a sticker on your helmet that proudly proclaims how special you are, and keep jumping in the LFD.  I'm sure you'll find more people willing to tolerate your bullshit.

And I'm still boggled by Silfactor's attitude.  Just because it's a random person you probably won't spend time with ever again does not mean you have to tolerate behavior like that.  I can't believe you're willing to just more or less whore yourself out to the LFD.  It doesn't matter how it treats you, it will be over soon and then you can go about your business, right?

After that dungeon run, I was in a rather foul mood.  It's a good thing my arena teammate was on and looking to do some matches.  It was a nice stress relief.  Who knew arenas could be less stressful than dungeons? lol.

Between matches, I received a whisper that made my night though.  I guess we stomped his team at some point.

So you want to know why tanks freak out now and again?  Here's your answer: retarded DKs and mouthy druids.

Strange things afoot

So Blizzard has been talking about how the new dungeons will require more single target focusing instead of just a large AOE kill everything gogogo fest.  Which, if implemented, I was looking forward to.

However, it seems as if the Paladins are getting some additional AOEs, the blood boil of the Death Knight is being reworked and now this for warriors:  Thunderstruck - Your Thunder Clap leaves a crackling zone of energy on the ground for 5 sec, dealing damage every sec to enemies that cross it.

This is also in addition to this: Blood and Thunder - When you Thunder Clap a target affected by your Rend, you have a 100% chance to affect every target with Rend.

Which means pretty much the tank tool kit just got some nice new toys in holding AOE threat.

Well color me confused.  We're getting a bunch of AOE abilities for a new non-AOE style of tanking?  What's up Bliz? 

Don't get me wrong here, adding an additional two AOE effects will make tanking on the warrior easier; that's for sure.

I'm not so sure that's a good thing.  I'm enjoying the warrior play style with having to pay pretty close attention to make sure you don't get a runner.  Additionally, having a warrior tank made the dps focus a bit more too.  It is a little easier to pull threat off of them when they're tanking groups of mobs, so if they went crazy with the AOEs they should expect to get smacked in the face a bit (by the warrior as they lie dead after the pull has ended). 

I'm a bit worried this will continue to usher in the faceroll dpsers that never really learn character control, and everything must be the fault of someone else.  I've noticed this moreso on the PVE servers than PVP (more on that to come).

Maybe that's the point of the new aoe tools though.  It gives the tank enough threat to hold the group while the rest of the party members kill of the group slowly one by one.  That would certainly explain the monstrous amount of HP tanks will have.

We'll just have to wait and find out.

Another Day, Another Paladin

Today was the 24 hour downtime for the Area 52 and Ysera servers, which meant no access to my current stable of toons.  Okay, I do have a Hunter on Stormscale, but I wasn't that interested in sitting down and figuring out which talent track to take.

So what's your friendly neighborhood Paladin to do?

Find another server and roll up a new Paladin, naturally.

(What?  I like Paladins.  Souldat likes tanks.  Your point?)

I'd tried three of the four Paladin races --Blood Elf, Draenei, and Human-- so that meant I was rolling up a Dwarf.  Besides, given the heat of mid-summer, looking at a nice frozen starting zone has its appeal.

Within five minutes of starting up and bapping wolves, somone got on Gen Chat and said, "Hey there.  My server's down."

"Imagine that," I replied.  "Same here."

I wasn't quite sure how I was going to handle having a liberal dosage of Gnomes running around, but the toons that I saw had dark hair --not pink-- and that actually makes them look halfway decent.  Still can't stand the voices, though.

One thing that I found interesting about the Dwarf/Gnome starting zone is the presence of Trolls.  Just how those Trolls ended up being detoured into the frozen mountains is beyond me --someone went a little too heavy on the mojo, mon-- but by my count that makes Trolls one of the most popular low level baddies out there, right up with Murlocs and Goblins.  I can only imagine what it would be like for a Dwarf arriving in Northrend, having fought the voodoo gang all the way since the beginning, reaching the Grizzly Hills and exclaiming "Not these idiots again!"

Anyway, there's not that much to report, since I'd have to putter around this Pally a bit before I decide what to do with him.  He'll probably end up something along the lines of my fourth string Paladin, but who knows?  Maybe I'll actually try tanking with him.

Curse Acquires MMO Champion

This is an interesting development.  Given what happened in the Alpha, I'd read speculation online that MMO Champion was handled with kid gloves by Blizz because of their affiliation with Major League Gaming.  And now, this announcement:

Curse Acquires MMO-Champion

Paladin Talent Trees - The Beta Version

I was perusing the Paladin talent trees courtesy of MMO Champion, and here are a few quick thoughts from the Ret and Holy Trees:

• The boost to INT and STR are gone.  I wonder how that's going to work out.
• Eye for an Eye indicates a chance at an automatic Judgement if someone attacks you.  I wonder if that is independent of your current CD or not.  Additionally, that means that if you have aggro and all you want is auto attack (like, say, for the Zombiefest achievement) there's a good chance that you're going to be hitting a lot harder than you intend.
• Judgements of the Wise seems to have been boosted to 1-3% of base mana.  Nice increase.
• Repentance will take longer to gain access (20 points in Ret talents = 40 levels, up from 30 points = 30 levels currently).
• Righteous Vengeance is now way early in the Ret talent tree.
• Aura Mastery is now waaaay down in the Holy Spec (20 points = 40 levels, up from 10 points = 10 levels).
• Judgements of the Pure is far up in the Holy Spec, essentially swapping places with Aura Mastery.
• Beacon of Light is also way up in the Holy Spec (only 10 points = 20 levels!), so you can fling that bacon around a lot earlier, and only taking a 6% bite out of your mana pool (as opposed to 35%).  Having it earlier in the game means that the Pally had better concentrate on INT even more heavily than before.
• There's a new healing talent, Inspired Judgement, which extends the healing of Beacon of Light from a Judgement you bring to bear to the Beacon's target. (!)  I wonder if that includes Judgements from an Eye for an Eye as well.
• Enlightened Judgements are now farther away (30 points = 60 levels as opposed to 45 points = 45 levels currently).  For those tanks who love to push the boundaries of where a Holy Spec Pally can heal, take note that the Healadin might be within range of those blasted silence spells.
• Improved Concentration Aura is now way down in the tree, reflecting when most people pick the darn thing up, I suppose.

All in all, interesting stuff.

Miscellaneous Musings

As I close in on Loremaster, I've come to the conclusion that I hate Kalimdor.

Eastern Kingdoms was a cakewalk compared to this.

True, you can use more aggressive quest assist add-ons than QuestHelper, but if the add-on is doing everything except moving your toon, then why bother?  That said, I've been tempted by the lure of easy questing.  Oh, I've been tempted.

Consider where I've been the past week or two for Kalimdor quests only:  Silithus, Moonglade, Feralas/Dire Maul, Tanaris, Dustwallow Marsh, Desolace, Felwood, Winterspring, Mulgore, Durotar/Orgrimmar, Thousand Needles, Eastern Plaguelands, Alterac, Stranglethorn, Swamp of Sorrows, and Hinterlands.  And that's for just two or three quest chains.  I know I've got The Barrens, the Blackrock instances, and various and sundry places in my future as well.

My frequent windrider miles are sure stacking up.

***

Maybe it's the state of the game right now, but I don't see that many people out questing when I'm putzing around, doing my thing.  Yes, I'm aware that a lot of people don't get up at 5 AM to get their WoW fix in, but I have been getting online in the late afternoon as well and there have been very few people out and about.  I'm starting to wonder if the LFD tool is finally pulling enough people into leveling that way rather than being out and seeing Azeroth.  I know from the standpoint of an ex-PvP server user, it's infinitely safer than being ganked in Tarren Mill.

Who knows what's going on?  Maybe the lure of that Worgen or Goblin character has some questers on the fence right now until Cataclysm drops.

***

There are times when I wish I could clone Quint and send him off to another realm and/or faction.  Yeah, I know, you miss out on the playing, yadda yadda yadda.  Seriously, though, it would be nice to be able to clone a character or be able to get people to join up for a party across servers.  With RealID, Blizz has taken the chat feature and made it non-realm specific (for better or worse), so why not do that for the LFD tool or party creation?  Of course, that makes the cash cow of switching servers go away, but still....

***

I was in an Old Kingdom run today when I was presented with a dilemma.  The tank had pulled a trash mob, but the situation was such that he couldn't pull the mob that far back without causing another group behind us to aggro.  (The position of the mobs in some of those weird angular openings in the Old Kingdom do that.)  However, if Quintalan took up his usual position opposite the tank there was a good chance that I might get a separate trash mob to aggro on me instead.  That would mean I'd have to take up position to one side of the tank, all but guaranteeing that I'd pull aggro unless I reduced myself to auto attack.  The Frostbringers and Eyes of Taladram were bringing it hard, and our caster DPS wasn't that great.

Which was the lesser evil:  take up my normal position and run the risk of having another trash mob aggro on us; stay to the side and auto-attack, hoping that the healer could handle the drawn out fight; or stay to the side and amp up the attacks, risking aggro but figuring that better I get aggro from the mob we have rather than an extra one?

(For the record, I chose the last option, and yes, I did pull aggro, but Hand of Salvation was off cooldown so I was ready.)

***

One last thought:  with Arthas now dead in Cataclysm's timeline, how is Blizz going to reconcile the Northrend questlines with the new reality?