Paladin tanking 201 – Tanking Heroics

A while back I wrote a post on leveling as protection, and how ridiculously simple (even if it is boring) it is to do. Assuming you followed that post to level 80, you’ve not got yourself a freshly minted tank that is looking to get some gear upgrades.

Like I wrote a few days ago, patch 3.3 is a god-send for tanks. Instant queues are the order of the day, and even if you run into some rude DPS/healers – your badge to hour ratio should still be exceptionally high. With that in mind, I’m going to go over a basic talent/glyph set, basic stats you should be shooting for, and a rough outline of spells and the 9/6/9 rotation. I’m not going to go over specific gear lists, because honestly there are some already out there, and your gear will upgrade so quickly that your head will spin.

First – get your spec right

Rhidach (and many others) have posted on the merits of using Seal of Command (SoCom) in five man instances for the snap agro you’ll need to help hold mobs off those trigger finger DPS. While a protection build is fairly flexible, there are certain things to keep in mind when speccing for tanking heroics.

1. It’s all about damage. Survivability is important, but you don’t need all the talents you’d normally take for raid tanking.

2. Speed is the key. While you can get away (to some extent) with a slower speed, you’re going to be getting pushed by the DPS.

3. Remember the Sunwell. I don’t know how that really fits in, but they yell it to me all the time in Silvermoon/Shattrath – so I’m assuming it’s important.

My personal spec for heroics is a variation on the 53/18 I use for tanking raids. I don’t know that this build is perfect, but it gets the job done.

Protection Tree

· Divine Strength: 5/5 – More Strength means more block value, more damage, and thereby more threat.

· Anticipation: 5/5 – More dodge equals, more dodge?

· Imp. Righteous Fury: 3/3 - 6% less damage taken, right off the top.

· Toughness: 5/5 - More armor equals more mitigation.

· Imp Devotion Aura: 3/3 – More armor plus 6% more healing done to anyone hit by your aura.

· Blessing of Sanctuary: 1/1 – 10% more Stamina and Strength, plus 3% reduced damage taken, and mana back when you block, dodge, or parry. This will be the only blessing you should be running.

· Reckoning: 5/5 – This build centers around SoCom, which can proc from reckoning hits.

· Sacred Duty: 3/3 – We’re taking this for the 8% more stamina. The 60 seconds off our bubble wall is just pure gravy.

· One-Handed Weapon Specialization: 3/3 – 10% more damage from your 1H weapon.

· Spiritual Attunement: 2/2 – I only run 1/2 in my raid build, but you may need more mana back due to lower avoidance. If you’re finding mana isn’t an issue, feel free to put one (or both) of these points elsewhere.

· Holy Shield: 1/1 – Part of the 9/6/9, this deals damage and ups your block percentage. It’s win all around.

· Ardent Defender: 3/3 – your extra life. This talent is so overpowered that no Paladin should be without it.

· Redoubt: 3/3 – More block value and block percentage on chance.

· Combat Expertise: 3/3 – Doubly important now that Shield of Righteousness is now a melee hit and can be dodged or parried. 6% more stamina and crit is just pure deliciousness added to this.

· Touched by the Light: 0/3 – If you can find points to slam into here, please do – but I can’t find any, and since this build is dependant on SoCom instead of SoV, spellpower isn’t as important.

· Avenger’s Shield: 1/1 – Your Captain America, and the reason we all rolled Pally tanks to begin with.

· Guarded by the Light: 2/2 – Less spell damage taken, and your Divine Plea stays up as long as you’re hitting something.

· Shield of the Templar: 3/3 – 3% less damage taken, and your Avenger’s Shield can now be used as a silence/interrupt.

· Judgements of the Just: 2/2 – 10 sec reduced CD on your one true stun/interrupt (Hammer of Justice), plus you reduce a target’s attack speed by 20%. These points can go into Touched by the Light if you so choose.

· Hammer of the Righteous: 1/1 – Reach out and touch many mobs.

Retribution

· Deflection: 5/5 – 5% more parry.

· Imp Judgements: 2/2 – While I normally only run 1/2 in this talent for raid tanking, you’re going to run into situations where you need this spell up faster in order to pick up a loose mob.

· Heart of the Crusader: 3/3 – Gives everyone an extra 3% crit chance against your target. You can take 2/2 in Imp Might here instead if you want, but I just give everyone kings anyway.

· Conviction: 2/5 – Increases crit chance

· Seal of Command: 1/1 – The core of this build, and the seal you will run on all trash.

· Pursuit of Justice: 2/2 – Personally I like the increased speed, but you can swap these talents out and put a speed enchant on your boots if you like.

· Crusade: 3/3 – 3% more damage against 75% of the mobs you’ll be facing.

Remember that this build is not ideal for raid tanking, or even for soloing as you’ve lost the increased spell power and buffed Sacred Shield. This build is designed for maximum damage, while still tanking.

Second – Your Glyphs

Glyphing for heroic tanking is slightly different than glyphing for raid tanking. I like to run with the following glyph set.

Major Glyphs

· Glyph of Holy Wrath – Reduces the CD of your Holy Wrath by 15 seconds. A nice DPS boost, plus it stuns your targets (undead), and helps hold them in your consecrate for an extra second.

· Glyph of Hammer of the Righteous – HotR hits one additional target. Helpful with AoE tanking, especially when you’re running Seal of Corruption/Vengeance instead of Seal of Command.

· Glyph of Divine Plea – 3% less damage when Divine Plea is up.

· Glyph of Seal of Command – If you’re really having mana issues, this can help some. Not my first choice though.

· Glyph of Righteous Defense – Increases the chance for your taunts to hit. Use this if you’re missing a lot of taunts. Personally, I just let the melee die if they’re pulling agro.

Minor Glyphs

· Glyph of Blessing of Kings – This is the only blessing I generally put out (other than Sanct on myself) so this helps reduce the initial mana cost.

· Glyph of Sense Undead – 1% increased damage against undead, which is a good chunk of what you’re tanking.

· Glyph of Lay on Hands – Really the only other minor glyph worth taking here, reduces the CD of your LoH by 5 minutes.

Basic gear and stats

Now that you’ve got your talents and glyphs set, let’s look at your basic gear and stat layouts. The first, and most important thing, is to reach the heroic defense cap of 536. Don’t worry about it if you go over, and don’t worry about hitting 541 just yet – that’s your soft cap for tanking in raids.

Don’t stress hit or expertise at this point, as your entry level gear won’t have a lot of these stats on them. While I personally like to run fully hit capped (or as close as I can get), it’s not imperative for heroic farming. If you can get around 150 hit or so, you should be fine. You’re going to lose out on 10 free expertise by not running Seal of Corruption and its corresponding Glyph, but that’s the price we play for Seal of Command cleaves.

My best advice is to get yourself to 536 defense, and then stack stamina. With the cost of rare gems so low, don’t be afraid to use them or even epic gems if you can afford them. Make sure your gear is enchanted as well. Having good gems and enchants on your gear will go a long ways towards comforting your group members who may be upset that they didn’t draw a T10 geared tank with 50k HP.

For your tanking weapon, pick up the slowest 1H you can that has some Strength and Stamina on it. Don’t worry about getting a tank-stat weapon, unless you need it to reach your defense cap. Enchant it with Mongoose or AP, and get thyself to cleaving.

I’m geared and talented – now what?

Fortunately, the LFG tool should prevent you from landing in HoL or HoR right off the bat. Just in case, it might be best to queue yourself for some of the easier heroics (UK, Nexus, AN) or even start in non heroics (choose the random so you get two badges) until you get your feet steady under you. Don’t be afraid to let your group know right off the bat that you’re working on your tanking, and to please give you a bit of extra time with the boss and trash. Your healer is your number on ally here – as long as they are comfortable with it, you should be fine.

Most importantly though Read the strategies before you walk in the door, and don’t queue as the leader unless you mean it. It’s a lot easier to forgive a tank when they seem to have the basics (like not standing in Anub’s pound ability in AN).

You may want to make a few macros similar to these.

/p Hi guys. Just a heads up that I’m fairly new to tanking and am still working out the kinks. I’m defense capped, but would really appreciate a few extra seconds to establish threat on any trash and the bosses.

If there is another paladin in your group:

/p I will be buffing Kings. Please pick up Wisdom and Might.

What if my group is a bunch of jerks?

Fortunately for you, you’ll have instant queues as a tank. While some groups may vote kick you, or give you lots of harassment, you’ll ultimately come out on top. There’s a lot more DPS out there looking for groups than there are tanks looking to lead them.

Final tips, spells, and “I used to be a xyz tank, what now?”

Run Seal of Command and judge Light whenever possible. You can switch to judging Wisdom if you’re having mana problems or if there’s no replenishment in the party. Between 2/2 SA, Divine Plea, and BoS, you should be ok for mana though.

Don’t be afraid to stop and drink. Buy some cheap water (Honeymint Tea is about 3x the amount of mana you actually have – maybe more) and don’t be afraid to use it.

Use buff food on yourself, and spend the money on flasks or elixirs. Again, you’ll buy a lot more leniency if you’re showing that you’re putting out the maximum effort to make yourself the best you can be. You can also close some defense/HP gaps by using elixirs or flasks. Think of them as investments, especially if you’re chain running heroics.

Righteous Defense is your AoE tuant – you can simply click on a player who has agro and hit it. Hand of Reckoning causes damage now, and is great for breaking CC or pulling if Avengers Shield is on CD.

Learn to love the 9/6/9 rotation. You’ll live by it, or die by it. Basically it is Shield of Righteousness/Consecrate/Hammer of the Righteous/Holy Shield/SoR/Judgement/HotR/Consecrate – forever. You are rotating a short CD ability (SoR or HotR) with a long one (Consecrate, HS, or Judgement). On trash it’s tougher to keep this rotation up, but on bosses you should settle into the rhythm fairly quickly. Download the mod CLCRet for some help with this. It will show you what ability you should use next – think of it like training wheels.

You have no closer, and your interrupt is on a long CD. Use them wisely.

Pop your wings before a boss pull for extra threat. Just remember you can’t use your damage CDs for 30 seconds.

Conclusion

Hopefully this wall of text helps some new Paladin tanks feel more comfortable stepping into the heroic scene. With the bonus badges, it’s entirely possible to start today and be in full T9/232 gear by New Years. Good luck, and I’ll try to answer any questions in the comments in a timely fashion.

How to Occulus like a pro

I’m not the Kungen of tanks, and I don’t do 18k DPS, but I’m fairly comfortable in saying that I’ve led more than my share of successful raids and instances over the years. I also can’t draw, and since I write my blog posts during my lunch hour I don’t have access to WoW screenshots - so text is all you're usually going to get. Finally, I don’t know all the cool tricks for every class in every dungeon. For example until yesterday I had no idea that the little saplings in the Nexus had a buff you could spell-steal for some crazy DPS boost.

What I can do though is give you the knowledge you need to get through Occulus with nary a scratch or worry. After all, it seems to be the most hated heroic short of Shadow Labs in all greens. So, here’s what you need to know in order to successfully survive this horror of dungeons.

The start

First, you have to get past the players who immediately afk out upon seeing the Occulus loading screen. If you can get past this mini-boss, then you probably have a group that’s already comfortable with the run and you won’t need the rest of this post. If however, you’re new to a role (or the instance), or maybe have a new player along who is, then this post should help things out a bit.

General rules

It should go without saying that as DPS you should be using your /assist function to the best of your ability. While it’s true that most tanks will tab target through the mobs, you should be able to catch which one he’s focused on and work from there. It’s also polite to hold off an extra second on that AoE, especially if it’s a tank you’re not familiar with. Don’t stand in the AoE, and please – for the love of all that is holy – if you have a cleanse, use it. A cleanse in the right spot (yes, even from a DPS or a tank) can make a huge difference in the success of a run.

Initial trash

A mix of whelps and dragonkin, these fortunately don’t hit too hard. It’s going to be a challenge for your tank to gather up, since all the whelps are casters that like to sit back and shoot you in the face. Bide your time, assist the tank, and don’t go all WAKKA WAKKA WAKKA on the trash he’s not touching.

Drakos the Interrogator

The first boss you’ll face is a dragonkin named Drakos. Fairly straight-forward, his two main abilities are a Magic Pull (pulls everyone to him), and some bombs that explode for arcane damage. The bombs are a nuisance, but don’t hit for a ton, so don’t spend an inordinate amount of time running from them.

Tanks: Be prepared for everyone in your group to take a jump in threat when they are transported to stand directly on the boss. There will be bombs flying around, but don’t worry about them too much.

DPS: Save your threat CDs for when you get teleported to the boss. If your DPS is high enough, don’t bother moving away from the boss, just sit on him and keep blasting away.

Healers: There will be some party damage from the bombs, and he will also occasionally do a stomp that knocks everyone away from him. The party AoE is easily handled, even with a paladin in blues.

Varos Cloudstrider

The second boss you face takes a bit more work to get to, and is probably the 2^nd biggest reason folks hate the Occulus. By now you should have your drakes (color unimportant at this time) and should be flying around the platforms. To make this task as easy as possible, fly directly up and to the right of the platform where you get your drakes. Clear enough of the blue drakes out to safely land on one edge, and begin clearing trash.

When you mount up again, fly directly to the broken part of the ring in the center of the Occulus. You’ll march around this clearing 4 or so trash packs. Once you reach the other end, mount up, fly off to the floating platforms, and dispatch the remaining trash to remove the shield over Varos’s platform.

It is not necessary to clear all the drakes, even around Varos’s platform. Clear enough so you don’t agro them while you’re dismounted, and you’ll be fine.

Varos has two main abilities that will plague your group. The first is an AoE called Energize Cores. This will look like purple lightning connecting him to the pillars around his platform, covering ¼ of the surface (if he’s standing in the middle). Move yourself out of the purple lightning, and keep up what you’re doing. Undergeared players can be one shot by this, so help your healers sanity by not standing in the obvious Giant Big debuff zone.

The second ability that really hurts is when he calls for assistance from one of his Captains. A blue beam will shoot down from a drake and chase someone around. Needless to say, move away from it and don’t kite the beam onto your party members. Standing in the beam is a sure way to cause your healer to develop ulcers, and ultimately to let you die.

Tanks: There’s a couple of different methodologies for doing him. The first is to kite him towards his pillars, reducing the area covered by the lightning. Unfortunately this generally results in you being hit. The second is to try and hold him directly in the center and let your healer and DPS move around you. An blue geared Paladin may have difficulty with this method, especially if the tank is also in lower level gear, but it is still effective.

DPS: Stay out of the lightning and the pillar of fire. Expect to die if you stand in either.

Healers: Damage is fairly steady, with minimal AoE damage if the DPS moves properly. Watch for spikes of frost damage on the tank from Varos’s Ice Lance ability. Don’t be afraid to let someone die if they stand in the pillar of fire.

Mage-Lord Urom

After defeating Varos, mount up again and fly up and counter-clockwise around the Occulus. You’re looking for a broken piece of platform ring that has a mage evocating on it. Land near him, and prepare for the first of three AoE packs (one per broken platform, not three on one platform). Urom will bounce from platform to platform, making you chase him until you finally fly towards the center of the Nexus to face him.

Urom’s two main abilities that will cause you worry are Frostbombs and Empowered Arcane Explosions. Frostbombs will land at his feet, and (with a group in blues/entry epics) he will need to be kited away from them as they apply a fairly significant DoT. Occasionally Urom will blink into the center of the ring, and begin casting his Arcane Explosion. LOS him by ducking behind a pillar, and wait for him to reappear at your feet.

Tanks: Assuming you aren’t steamrolling everything and geared in 226+ gear, kite Urom away from the frost patches. Be ready to move immediately after his Arcane Explosion, as he will drop another Frostbomb on your feet.

DPS: Don’t stand in the frost and LOS the explosion. Losing a few seconds of DPS to skirt a frost patch is worth it.

Healers: Anyone caught in the Arcane Explosion will take a significant chunk of damage (13k or so). Be aware of the Time Bombs that he will drop on random members doing 5k on impact and additional damage “based on the amount of health missing from the target”. So in short, keep everyone topped off as much as possible. It’s ok to let DPS who stand in the Frostbombs die.

Ley Guardian Ereogs

The real reason everyone hates this instance, and one of the easiest bosses once you get the mechanics down. At this time you’ll want to look at your party’s drake composition, and adjust as necessary. For (what I believe) the easiest ‘traditional’ kill, you’ll want two green, two bronze, and one red drake.

Eregos has three main abilities which will cause your party to have problems. Summoned whelps, Enrages, and Arcane Missles/Orbs. Each of these can be easily dealt with, providing you keep your wits about you, and communicate with your group.

At the start, position yourself above the small platform with the loot chest, and way for Eregos to fly close. When he does, let the red drake pull, and start your DPS rotations. The easiest way to avoid the Arcane Missles/Orbs during his phase out is to simply run away from the center for approximately ten seconds. Then stop, and wait for the orbs to disappear before flying back to the platform and repeating your DPS. Repeat this every time he vanishes until he’s dead.

Red Drake: This drake is the tank, make sure he pulls first. The three abilities of the red drake are a fire breath, evasion, and damage absorbtion. Pop your damage absorbtion early, because it will trigger your evasion. Always try and target a whelp with your flame breath, as the flame will jump targets, and increases the amount of damage done every time it jumps.

Bronze Drake: To do it right, this drake requires the most coordination between the two bronze drake riders. Your three abilities are a time-stop (only used when Eregos enrages), a channeled DPS spell, and a cast DPS spell. To maximize your DPS, one drake channels while the other casts, until 10 stacks of a debuff are up. Then they switch roles, alternating each time 10 stacks are up. Odds are, you won’t be able to get your partner to do this, so just take the DPS hit and channel for him until your stacks are up, cast once, and then channel again.

Green Drake: Your three abilities are a poison bolt which places a DOT on Eregos, which also heals your party members (from the damage done). Get a three stack on Eregos, and then hit your second ability which reduces his chance to hit by 25%. This stacks, so make sure the second green drake applies this as well. It does a fair chunk of damage to you, so only apply it every 30 seconds. Keep your DOT up, and use your health funnel to heal up the DPS and tank. Whatever you do, don’t let your DOTs fall off.

Alternate Method

If you’ve got a fairly well geared healer, an alternate method is to have four players get red drakes, and to have your healer stand on the platform with the loot chest. Your healer can keep the drakes up, and since all four drakes are tanks, they will take minimal damage this way. This is a great method to use if some folks ‘just don’t get it’ and are causing problems.

Conclusion

I hope this write-up helps at least one person get through the Occulus in a random PUG. Of course as I mentioned, the odds are good that if everyone stays to do the instance, the odds are good you won’t need this guide.

3.3 – The greatest tank patch ever

While the individual changes for most tanks this patch were either fairly minor, or non-existent (depending on your viewpoint), there was one feature this patch that has had a greater impact on tanks than any other feature, ever.
And I’m not talking about the annoying mob pathing bug.

No, I’m talking about the instant queue in the LFG system – or as it’s been come to be known in our group – “The obscene free loot system”.

First, I want to say that while the system is a huge step forward in helping close the gear gap between raiders and non-raiders, alts and mains, etc. – it’s also lacking a few features that I hope to see fixed in the next major patch. These issues certainly aren’t game breaking, but they are minor annoyances that do detract from the overall usefulness of the system.

The Good

My favorite thing about the LFG tool is the ability to simply queue and continue my day, much like the current Battleground queue system. I’m sure most of us can remember the days of camping out near the Battlemasters, wasting long periods of time for the BG to pop. Even if you left the major city, you would be transported back there at the completion of the BG, further reducing the time you had to complete dailies or other tasks.

Another plus is the system performs a basic gear check before dropping someone into an instance. While a gear check can’t guarantee a high performance (we’ve all heard of T9 players doing 1k DPS), it does at least help prevent a tank in crafted blues and greens from being dropped into H-HoR. While it’s certainly possible to tank the ‘easier’ heroics in lesser gear, some of the new heroics can be quite challenging to freshly geared tanks and healers. Poorly geared DPS doesn’t help either, as the longer it takes to burn down the boss/trash, the greater strain on the tanks and healers.

The Bad

The inability to queue for battlegrounds, join the Looking for Raid, and queue for LFG simultaneously is one of the biggest flaws in this system. Due to the nature of a queue system, it is impossible to know when your number will be up in the queue – thus preventing you from joining BGs or Raids. Additionally, not being able to continuously run heroics while listing yourself as available for a raid, reduces the overall functionality of the LFR tool by lowering the number of players who actually use it. Given the fickle nature of the raid-beast, waiting for the random ToC/Naxx/Ony raid can take a good long while. Time that would be better spent running heroics for extra badges.

Another drawback to the LFG system, and one that I am admittedly guilty of as well, is the innate judgment that happens 15 seconds into the group. As I’m sure most of you have noticed, there’s a minimal (if any) conversation at the start of the run. I have a quick “I am not stopping for anything short of the healers needing mana” type macro I hit after my buffs go out – and then I’m off to the races. When the initial trash pull is down, my eyes glance down at recount to see how the group is doing DPS wise. I cringe when I see DPS below me (as the tank) on the meters. Forget that I’m pulling 3k+ DPS in any heroic with undead.

Do any of us remember when 1500 DPS was all that was needed for heroics, and 2k DPS was great for Naxx? A year later and anything less than the tank is still a problem, but the tank DPS has increased exponentially. This puts ungeared and new players at a disadvantage (more in a second), and can lead to some unfriendly runs. I don’t mind carrying someone who’s doing the best they can (from my standpoint), but I’ve seen some pretty ugly comments. This is, unfortunately, not a problem with the LFG system – but a problem with the players themselves.

The Ugly

Most heroics I run average at right around 20 minutes to complete. The notable exceptions to this are CoS (with the non-skippable RP section) and HoS (stupid dwarves). Other than those, must heroics are quick burns that end shortly after my debuff timer falls off. Even in a lower geared group, the heroics are quickly handled, with most players knowing what they’re doing (or at least faking the funk well). The problem lies in the mass exodus that I have seen from some instances – namely Occulus, AN (seriously?), and OK (again, lolwut?).

First, I can’t understand the reluctance to run AN. Three bosses, almost zero trash, and it is (in my opinion) one of the fastest heroics around. With the bonus badges, I’d put AN as one of the top 3 best for badges per hour. When I’m DPSing I love getting OK, because (if I can get the tank/heals to agree) it’s a total of seven badges, and still fairly quick.

Occulus holds a special fear it seems, but with the nerfs to that instance I can’t understand why. Drakes now scale with gear level, boss damage has been reduced, and the overall player base knowledge of how to handle the instance has grown. I still seem to see a mass exodus from this instance, which is extremely frustrating if you’re DPS.

What needs work

Instant queues for tanks, minute (maybe) queues for healers, and ten to twenty minute queues for DPS. I don’t see this changing anytime (ever), but it is something that could use some work. Unfortunately, the only answer I can think of is more players rolling tanks.

Removing someone for not doing 3k DPS has got to stop. We all started somewhere, but using the Vote Kick for this doesn’t help anyone. This is the one reason that this feature didn’t land in my Good section.

Need/Greed/DE – This system is so close to being perfect, but the holes are still there. Watching an item you could use, but can’t Need on, is disheartening. Yes, it beats having things ninja’d (really, Shaman who ninja’d a Christmas hat?), but there’s not getting something back once it’s been DE’d. This of course goes back to communication with your group, and letting them know before hand that you’re looking for a certain item. While this doesn’t guarantee that said item won’t be DE’d (or held ransom), it is a start – and it’s something the player can do now for themselves.

Conclusion

As my title states, this is the best patch ever for tanks. With instant queues throwing us into dungeons, it’s very easy to get the badges we need for upgrades, offsets, or gems. I know that even though I would like my warrior to be a MS PVP machine, I’ll gear him for tanking, and buy my PVP gear with the badges. Same goes for my DK (if I ever take them off the shelf). I just wish I could tank with my mage.

Without a doubt the new LFG tool is amazing. It just needs one or two more tweaks to make it great.

Deathbringer Saurfang

Mongrr had fraps up and running last week, and we got our kills caught on tape. This was our first Deathbringer kill, and we one shot him the day the instance launched. To be fair, we had a few more challenges with him the second week due to some personnel shifting and our mage getting his account hacked.

With two earthbind totems, plus a boomkin's knockback, the adds were relatively easy to handle and we got the achievement as well. The fight seemed undertuned compated to what I'd heard from the PTR, though I'm sure it's a lot more difficult on 25s.

Enjoy, and make sure to watch it in HD.

Dabbling in the arcane

Last week I managed to get my mage into our guild Ulduar run to try my hand at raid DPSing. I’ve managed to cobble together some semi decent gear, though I’ve still got some serious upgrades that need to happen.

Now I’m certainly no master of the mage, but I do like the current playstyle of both Arcane and Frost mages. I’ll be playing with fire PvP as well, simply because it’s something else to do.

One thing that I have noticed is that I enjoy the mage DPS much more than playing my paladin as Ret. I don’t know if it’s the lack of a true rotation, or that the mage has fewer raid utility buttons to worry about. It could also be a mind game, as I still think of myself as a tank or healer when I’m logged in on the paladin. I’m constantly scanning the raid for someone needing a Salv, BoP, or a random loose mob.

Tunnel Vision

This is one thing that I’ve been fairly fortunate to avoid, though I did slip into it somewhat on Vezack, and that’s the tunnel vision that I see so many DPSers slip into. I suppose that I can see how this can happen, especially when you’re focused on keeping a tight rotation of abilities to keep your DPS high. With spells pushing the GCD, and haste pushing that to one second, losing a step here or there can have an impact on your DPS.

Here’s the flip though. Dead DPSers have a total DPS of zero. I would rather have someone who can stay alive through an entire fight and do slightly less DPS than someone who does 18k DPS but is dead in the first 30 seconds. We see this all the time in our PUG ToC 25. Someone is standing still during phase 2, continuing to nuke adds, and Anub runs right through them.

I’m thoroughly enjoying the mage, though it’s certainly not as much fun as tanking. I’ve taken a few breaks from tanking to DPSing over the years, but I always migrate back. With dual specs available, and alts so easily geared, it’s very easy to enjoy some face melting on the mage, and keep doing what I love with the tank.

I don’t see me ever making the change to my mage full time, but it does give me another toy to play with, and I’m hoping to round out my five piece PvP set this week. I’ll still be squishy in PvP, but at least I’ll have some protection.

25s or 10s – which way to go

Guild-Ox recently reset their 10 man strict rankings, and since we haven’t stepped into ICC 25 yet, is now ranked 18th in the world in strict 10s.

Wow.

Granted, a lot of us are rocking some decent gear from ToC 25, but I’m going to argue against those that say this means we out-gear ICC. While there are some significantly different (and nicer) pieces from ToC25, it’s all still the same ilvl. Obviously it’s itemized differently, otherwise there wouldn’t be an achievement for killing Anub with just 10man gear. So maybe we out gear it a touch.

Unfortunately this puts us at a crossroad. Do we stick with the strict 10 man runs this time around, or do we branch out and see how the other half is living in 25s? I know the content is supposedly more difficult, but in my opinion the difficulty isn’t from the bosses themselves, but from the additional players.

I understand that the bosses often have different, and sometimes more challenging, abilities in 25 mans (especially in hard modes), but you have a greater range of talent to draw from in these instances. For example Yogg’Saron has the Bellowing (Deafaning?) Roar in the 25 man hard modes, something you don’t have to deal with in 10 mans. Lady Deathwhisper has a mind control and additional adds in 25 man – again something we don’t have to deal with in 10 mans. On the flip side, ToC 10 and 25 are virtually identical. Other than the bosses having more HP and hitting harder (and a few more players in FC), there’s no additional tricks to learn.

This similarity made it very easy for us to work with another guild to raid ToC-25. Although to be honest, when we walked in the door we didn’t know for sure there was nothing different. We do adapt quickly though, so I don’t imagine it would have been too difficult.

So what's the real difference?

One of the things that makes 10 man raiding 'easier' is there are only nine other personalities for you to deal with. It's easier to adjust when something happens in both a raid or real life. There's less competition for gear, while having more individual responsibility and accountability. Not only can the raid function in a tighter fashion, but a smaller guild will also have fewer issues (simply by ratio of numbers).

Of course is no bed of roses. I'm fairly certain we've all ignored each other more than once, and there's definately some serious mislike between some of our members (can't we just get along?). The difference is though, that when it's time to gear up and raid, we all come together for a couple of hours.

Even if it is our goal to kill Ed every chance we have.

Sticking with the 10s

I think for now we’re going to stick with the 10 man only raids. While it would be great if we had 15 other like minded folks to raid 25s with, I don’t believe that any of our current members have the drive or desire to rebuild a 25 man raid guild. It would be virtually impossible for us to find a 25man guild that needed all of us, would never bench us, and raided with our schedule.

Of course, if this ever falls apart, you can bet I’ll be tossing out some applications in a hurry.

Unless someone happens to need a full 10 man raid group to join thier 25s.

3.3 – Impressions and ICC

3.3 launched yesterday with the usual fanfaire and shenanigans. The servers were down, logins were aborted, instances crashed, and UI errors filled the screen. In all honesty, I’ve seen worse from a major patch (AQ anyone?), and this was pretty mild considering the changes that were put in. All in all I’m impressed with 3.3 – and here’s a quick overview of Tuesday night in .

LFG and the new 5 mans

Since half our guild was already inside the first five man, I partnered up with Monger and hit the LFG for a specific instance. The interface was really smooth, and about 30 seconds later we were at a loading screen. There were some issues with getting into the dungeons (and the instance servers crashing) but all in all it was a pleasant enough experience.

I didn’t get an opportunity to complete all three five mans before raid time, but what I saw was pretty awesome. I went into each boss fight blind, and really enjoyed some learning moments with both trash and the bosses. They are definitely a step above the original five mans, and the loot is pretty sweet. I managed to win myself a Quel’Delar hilt, but I passed it off to Monger. I don’t heal as much where I need a big upgrade, I have the 245 axe from Anub, and I have three different 245 tanking weapons. I’ll try and grab it again for sure though, just to complete the questline.

Into ICC – Raid Time

First impression on entering ICC – Tirion needs a bigger battering ram. Honestly though, this is what Ulduar should have looked like. A massed army and their cohorts, though I expected to see more folks outside shooting at the citadel or something. I liked that you could see Lord Multiheaded bone guy (Marrowgar?) from the entrance, and the trash was somewhat spooky. “I wonder if those things chase us, it looks like it’s breathing”. RAAAWWRRRR!! Yup.
We took it cautious on the trash, next week we’ll probably go back to just AoEing everything down. We elected to use some CC and LOS pulls though and made it to Marrowgar with nary a scratch. Nobody had done any real reading on him, so we just rattled off some major abilities and went to it. I didn’t feel that he hit particularly hard, and his whirlwind was easy enough to move from. The biggest issue we had was not collapsing after a whirlwind, and someone being out on an island and getting a bone spike. We one shot him, and moved on to the next boss.

Lady Deathwhisper

Fortunately the elevator boss up to Lady Deathwhisper was nerfed, the elevator goes up not down (like SSC), so there were no falling deaths. The trash was entertaining, and in typical fashion we wiped on the trash and then one shot the boss. Deathwhisper’s mechanics were fairly straight forward, and the only time I felt like I was in danger was when I moved out of LOS while tank changing. I will say that 10min CD on the druid battle-rez is pretty nice – especially when we have three druids in the raid.

The hardest part of this fight was one of the big spider adds. They have an ability similar to Mark of the Faceless. After wiping on them once, we wound up fighting them along the wall near the cubby holes. When someone got the mark they would duck in, similar to Chromaggnus in BWL.

The Gunship

This is by far one of the coolest fights I’ve done so far. I mean, who doesn’t want to be Bobba Fett with a jump pack? Add in the engineering wrist rockets and I was looking to toss someone into a Sarlacc pit. We had two or three wipes here trying to figure out the timing and such on the Alliance ship, and Mauradin starts hitting like a truck in short order. Once we got the adds and timing sorted though, the fight was over in short order.

Saurfang the Younger

I have to say I was pretty disappointed in the entire encounter, though the interaction between father and sun was interesting. I also loved hearing Fordring fighting against the Lich King. Stand strong brother.

Conclusion

Overall the ICC raid and 5 mans were awesome, though I felt the encounters were a bit easy. It’s now Wednesday, and we’re sitting on ToC for the rest of the week. We may try and pull together a 25 man foray into ICC instead of farming 25 ToC again. Then again, the thought of running the gunship with some of those PUGs makes my skin crawl.