Through my many PUGing adventures, I’ve grouped with many a douche-bag for a tank, but I’ve also stumbled upon a few great, courteous tanks. To express my gratitude, I’m going to start highlighting the great players, specifically tanks, that I’ve grouped with in-game.

Basim, a feral druid from the Khaz Modan server, Disciples of Azeroth guild, I salute you. He pulled at a great pace and whispered to make sure he wasn’t pulling too quickly. He wasn’t loaded with HP but his game was tight and made the run smoother than any tank I’ve grouped with for that particular instance….including the 50k+ HP tanks.

Conversely, I grouped with another tank tonight for H-AN, who pulled the first two groups of mobs, then intentionally AFKed. Since he was leader, we had to wait 15 minutes for the internal kick timer to expire before we could proceed. To kill time and frustration, we pulled the next pack of mobs and fled to the instance portal for the sheer joy of watching the tanks HP disappear until his death. How mature we are.

I really appreciate it when tanks fight on the stairs rather than the top of the platform where they are out of line-of-sight and I have to be in melee range to heal them. Some examples would be the Moorabi boss fight in Gundrak (pictured above), and most of the fights in Violet Hold. It’s relatively minor, but it’s a considerate move and I want to thank all tanks out there that have a mind to do it. I’m convinced that those tanks also play a healer.

As a side note, does Moorabi ever actually hurt anyone? Since the release, he has been such an easy fight.

Buff Moorabi!

First off, please disregard my awful graphics card. Everything in the game looks like it’s built with LEGOs.

After many hours (more like 8 minutes), I decided to go with another dwarf for the new priest alt; this time it’s a female. The reasons came down to a) the awesome casting animation b) the rarity/repulsiveness of female dwarfs and c) the fact that I can probably tolerate Dun Morogh one more time.

She’s pictured above, modeling her heirloom Tattered Dreadmist Robe, which will level along with her and give a 10% XP boost. After a few more heroics I’ll have enough badges for the matching Tattered Dreadmist Mantle, which adds another 10% XP bonus.

I’m in the middle of laying out the complete list of heirloom items and the total emblem/shard cost, for those that are interested in pimping out their new priests.

Now for a little bitching and complaining…

There is a possibility that I’m missing something, but if not, the way to purchase heirloom items is stupidly tedious and annoying. The items cost around 40 Emblems of Heroism. When Wrath was first released and there were only two types of badges (Heroism and Valor), purchasing heirloom items wasn’t so bad. If you raided and had Valors, in order to buy the items, you had to convert 40 Emblems of Valor into 40 Emblems of Heroism. Yes, this means clicking close to 80 times for one purchase.

Now, with 3 MORE different badges in place, it’s out of hand. You have to convert Emblems of Frost to Emblems of Triumph 40x, then Emblems of Triumph to Emblems of Conquest 40x, then Conquest to Valor, then Valor to Heroism. I developed Carpal Tunnel Syndrome midway through the shitty process.

Am I missing something or is this really how we’re supposed to handle it?

If you have a World of Warcraft blog that you’d like to share, go to this page and leave a comment and I’ll add it to the blogroll. Also, if you’re on Twitter and/or Facebook and would like to connect with the others that share the same passion (cough::cough:: addiction), post your usernames/URLs as a comment.

For those that don’t have a blog, why not start one? You’d be surprised how many people would love to read about your journey and quests through Azeroth. Using a free service such as blogger.com or wordpress.com, you could have your own page set up within minutes. Come back here and share the link.

My WoW Twitter account: www.twitter.com/tankhealdps

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Band together!

Well, good luck has to end eventually. This was the band of complete morons that I got grouped with tonight for a random heroic (VH). I should have left the party the second I saw the crap they were writing, but I honestly didn’t feel like waiting for the 15 minute debuff to wear off so I just kept quiet and got through the run.

Feel free to file a complaint with Blizzard. I did.

So I’m creating another priest. I don’t know why. I like pain, I guess. Part of it is because I’ve forgotten what it’s like to heal the old 5-mans. The other part is wanting to be able to provide tips to newer priests to the game without having to say things like, “Use Prayer of Mending a lot during the Van Cleef fight…oh wait, you don’t get that spell until level 68.”

The question is, which race? With a few more dungeon runs I’ll have enough to purchase three heirloom items, so I prefer Alliance. Another dwarf? A human with a beard and a staff? Maybe spacecow? What’s your opinion?

I found this via MMO-Champion.com. It’s not healing related but worth watching, I think. A rogue makes some neat uses of game mechanics and manages to (eventually) solo 25-man Patchwerk. Check it out:

After a two-month hiatus, I returned to the game last night. Thankfully, there were no patches to download, or addons to update. Everything worked the way it’s supposed to.

I queued for a random heroic while heading to an armor merchant to repair. After about 3 minutes, our group was ready. To my dismay, it was Halls of Reflection.

Halls of Reflection

The instance itself is interesting, and when you’re fortunate enough to be grouped with a solid party, it’s a lot of fun. Conversely, just one bad player can make the dungeon a miserable failure.

Our group consisted of a druid tank with about 41k buffed HP, a hunter, mage, and paladin for dps. The highest DPS player, the paladin, was hitting about 3200 DPS with the lowest at about 2900. My memory told me to be worried but the spectacular play of the group taught me otherwise. They were fabulous.

We went with the LoS method, which requires everyone but the tank to tuck themselves around the corner so that, if/when they pull aggro, the enemies will have to run through the tank to get to them. The strategy works well most of the time but eventually the party will have to move from the corner and the tank will need to have secured aggro on the ranged mobs by that time.

There were a few scares which were all caused by me getting stunned at bad times (as opposed to the good times to be stunned?). Guardian Spirit saved the group at least once.

No upgrades dropped for me, but the tank got a decent weapon. I got the satisfaction of enjoying a challenge with a great group of players.

My next random run was Halls of Lightning.

Halls of Lightning

Upon entering the instance it was clear that it would be an easy run. The tank, who’s name was Onetokill, was a paladin with 50k health. The DPS was pumping out an average of 5500 DPS. They were all part of the same guild (Reckless Abandon). There wasn’t a single challenge throughout the entire run, and Loken was killed in 20 seconds.

Pit of Saron

PoS is another challenging instance that requires a half-competent party. The party consisted of a warrior with 42k health, a shadow priest, and two hunters. Once again, luck was on my side. Everyone was polite and could play their class well.

Garfrost was easier than I remember. Either he was nerfed, or our team did a great job getting behind boulders to remove debuff stacks. Hint: If everyone is topped off and you have the global cooldown to spare, you can and should remove stacks with Dispel Magic. It makes the most sense to do this for the tank and melee DPS, since they’ll generally have a further run to hide behind boulders.

Krick and Ick were a joke. I’ve yet to see a party wipe on this boss. If you move away when they go into “Pursuit” phase, keep moving when they lay bombs, move out of slimy puddles, and move away from poison nova then there’s no reason for anyone besides the tank to take damage.

The trash that leads to the gauntlet tunnel is widely regarded as the most difficult part of the instance. I agree. They are spread apart, making it difficult for the tank to establish aggro, and the casters destroy whatever they hit.

The gauntlet was annoying, but we made it without a problem. In fact, one of our hunters disconnected before the cave, so we were forced to 4-man the cave and Tyrannus.

Once again, no gear upgrades for me, but it was another successful and enjoyable run. It feels good to be back.

I quit Warcraft for a few months to get my life back in order, and I’m ready to come back. Hopefully the posting frequency will pick up here as a result.

Cataclysm is around the corner!

Over the last few nights I’ve been able to upgrade my PvP gear thanks to a pile of honor I didn’t know I had. Upon purchasing the gear, I realized that it’s also an upgrade over what I was wearing for PvE.

I replaced Lattice Choker of Light with Relentless Gladiator’s Pendant of Deliverance

and

I replaced Resurgent Phantom Bindings (Naxx 10) with Wrathful Gladiator’s Cuffs of Salvation

PvP gear, in general, isn’t optimal for raiding. But my heroic UK runs aren’t exactly ‘progression content’, as the forum nerds call it. An upgrade is an upgrade, plus I’ve always been a fan of high stamina.

At this point I have no clue as to my goals or hopes for the game in general. I keep upgrading gear but to do the same 5-mans. I haven’t been able to nail down time (or a team) to raid with, so I’m in limbo.

Know what I did yesterday? I needed to get to Stormwind from Ironforge. Did I:

• Hearth to Dalaran and port to SW? No.
• Did I take the bird from IF to SW? Nope.
• Did I take the Deeprun Tram? I thought about it, but no sir.

I huffed it. I rode my trusty ram from Dun Morogh, to Loch Modan, to The Badlands, to Searing Gorge, to Burning Steppes, to Redridge Mountains, to Elwyn Forest, to Stormwind. Why? Well, to invoke nostaglia, basically. I remember and miss my first months of playing. It was my first MMO and there was such a feeling of mystery and adventure. I remember wandering into Burning Steppes from Redridge at level 19 on accident and getting crushed by a fire elemental. “Wow, will I ever get to quest here one day? What else is out there?” Seeing people wearing epic gear was epic. I knew I’d never seen AQ40, and I was ok with that. Only the best and most dedicated should see it. Gearing, meeting new people, conquering new dungeons, it was all fresh and new to me.

Don’t get me wrong, Blizzard has polished the game since, and has made more of it accessible to more players. I don’t know if the latter is always a good thing, but I know that they know what they’re doing. The feeling of wonder and adventure isn’t there for me anymore. Four years of looting boars, ‘dancing’ with bosses, and gearing players has led me to the disappointing realization that the game can only change so much. The boars might be raptors, the boss strategies might be different, and a new character might favor intellect over agility, but the point is the same.

I still enjoy playing, otherwise I wouldn’t be doing it, but the game feels more like Tetris than it does an immersive experience. Last night it felt great to ride past the places where I first leveled. In the times of heirloom item XP bonuses, battleground leveling, and teleporting everywhere (from major cities to dungeons to battlegrounds), the roads were deserted. Why travel when the majority of the game can be played from Ironforge?