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.

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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 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?

I logged on yesterday out of obligation and commitment to earning 50 Emblems of Frost, which will allow me to replace my worn-out Wispcloak. Blizzard has me by the marbles in that respect. “If I don’t make it a point to do the random heroic at least once per day, then I miss out on two Frost Emblems. Oh, the humanity!”

I sighed, and entered the Random Heroic queue, silently praying that the gods would send me into AN, or UK,  partnered with a 40k-health tank. The load screen revealed Halls of Lightning. Not great but at least it’s something different, I thought. If I have to see Utgarde Pinnacle or Old Kingdom again I’m going to hurl my laptop into the woods.

I inspected the party and saw that the “tank” was a DK who was sporting 27k health with both Kings and Fortitude buffs. To make things worse, she was wearing a lot of attack power gear, including the heirloom leveling shoulders. Nothing was gemmed or enchanted. “Why do I do this to myself?” I thought while eating buff food, trying to do whatever I can do compensate for the tank’s shortcomings.

The first few pulls revealed that it wasn’t going to be a cake-walk of a run like I had hoped. The spike damage was insane. The tank’s health frequently dropped from 100%-30%, then back to 90% before dropping to 20%. It felt like I was solo healing a Patchwork fight back in the day. She did maintain aggro, for the most part. When the ret paladin and/or the other DK would steal aggro it was actually helpful because the damage was split and the melee dps had almost as much HP as the tank.

For new tanks who may be reading this, 27k health is fine for most heroics (save H-ToC and the new Icecrown 5-mans), as long as you’re defense capped. If you’re not defense capped, General Bjarngrim will critically strike you for 12,000 and if he strings two in a row, it’s a wipe; not to mention the trash before Loken that hits hard and stuns the healer. I have great respect for tanks. You guys have the toughest job, in my opinion. But please don’t sacrifice those crucial +defense gems that would remove critical strikes from the attack table just to get another thousand HP. It’s not worth it.

The run went smooth and without a wipe. I died once because the warlock accidentally backed into another group of mobs while we were fighting. Fortunately I was soul-stoned so I was able to resurrect and save us a run from the graveyard.

Loken was interesting. The strategy to move out of the nova was not even discussed. “Just stand under his feet,” the tank said. That was it. Normally I’d mention that we should be moving away from him when he casts nova, since it’s a long cast and certainly avoidable, but I kept my mouth shut. A year ago, when casters averaged 16-17k health, I would have insisted upon getting the hell out of the nova but our entire party was over the 20k health mark so it was enough to survive a blast.

I wasn’t paying enough attention to the warlock’s health before the nova and he wound up dying. It would have helped if he was under the boss’s feet, instead of 25 yards away taking unnecessary damage from the aura, but oh well. We killed Loken and the run was complete. While looting, the tank said, “How did I do? This is my first time at tank.” I think I heard the gods chuckling at their practical joke.

I was in a random PUG yesterday, doing Heroic Violet Hold. Right before the first portal opened, the warlock requested Kings from the paladin tank. No one in the group had paladin buffs. The tank ignored his request and the party pressed on. At around the third portal, the warlock commented “Paladin fail,” or some Warcraft forum lingo like that. The paladin replied with: “I’ll kill you in a duel.”  This went back and forth for a minute while the rest of the party kept silent and played the game. Finally the paladin said something that I couldn’t let go.

“I don’t buff,” he said.

“Why don’t you buff?” I asked.

“Cause I’m not a vending machine.”

Alright then. I left it at that and went back to my quiet world of healing. “I’ll buff you, but that’s it,” he added. Gee, thanks.

Our first random boss was Zuramat (the void boss). We accidentally got the achievement because DPS refused to take out the orbs. It’s Lich King Warcraft at it’s finest, “Hey, who cares if it stresses the healer and could cause an avoidable wipe? Let’s just stand in place and nuke because it’s simpler.” I miss the days of BC heroics where players were forced to focus, use and respect crowd control, and execute strategies perfectly in the more difficult heroics. Now’a days, if a tank recommends CC he’s automatically looked down upon because he’s “wasting time”.

It’s funny.  Non-CC DPS classes use to complain that they were never selected for the more difficult BC heroics because of their lack of CC. But then some of them were given CC in Wrath and they never use it! Hint hint: ret pallies and shaman.

The next boss was Xevozz, who is the ethereal boss which must be kited because his orbs are deadly. Once again, we tried standing in place and nuking him. No dice. We died when he was at about 30%, and this was with me blowing all of my cool-downs and spamming CoH and Prayer of Healing. All we would have had to do was walk backwards up one ramp and back down the other. Two rotations and it would have been over. Instead we wiped.

It is the first time I left the party before a run was over. I don’t mind wiping, but I’m not going to watch two 15 year olds bicker back and forth about who would win a duel, meanwhile we’re wiping because we’re too lazy to actually move our characters and/or select a different target besides the boss.

The next random dungeon was Old Kingdom, for what feels like the 45th time. It was a half-decent group with a little carrying-on at the end with the DPS warrior wanting to roll against the paladin tank for the tanking bracers.

“…but I need them for off-spec.”

“Ok, but I’m the tank for this run so I should get the bracers.”

“Whatever, you baby.”

Ah, PUGs.