Mags/Gruuls went exceedingly well for me last night (although not for our guild). I picked up T4 pants and the T4 chest, and finally feel confident enough to raid tank. Or at least, I would if not for two minor problems.
1. My guild has too many tanks. I am Prot Warrior #7. We have at least five Protection Paladins sitting around (our Guild MT is a Prot Pally at the moment). Every kitty druid is a bear in hiding. Despite being second on threat throughout most of the Gruul fight, I am last in line for choice tanking assignments due to my gear level (low). Aaaaand.
2. Wrath of the Lich King hits next week. We barely pulled enough people together to do Mags/Gruuls last night, and even had to do it without a mage tank. Things are looking bleh for next week attendance-wise.
Well, that's enough QQ from me. On the positive side, at least I get to look shiny for Northrend!
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Monday, October 27, 2008
Ding 70
Finally hit 70 after about a week of hardcore questing/instancing. Boy am I drained, but it's a good kind of drained.
The morning I turned 70, I got carried through Kara by my guild (I was 8th on the DPS meter, yay!). Although it wasn't the clean sweep that I wanted, I managed to pick up a few important Prot pieces (Iron Gauntlets of the Maiden, King's Defender, Boots of Elusion). The day after, I went on a tanking spree. Shadow Labyrinth, Botanica, Mechanar. It was an absolute joy to tank these after having run some of them 500 times (approx).
Running Shadow Labs was an eye-opener. I had to watch how I pulled, and I'm not ashamed to say that I wiped on two occasions because my situational awareness wasn't at its highest. In pre-70 OL dungeons I could just grab a pack of mobs, AoE, and rock out. Boss-fights were the only parts of those runs that got hairy. Now at 70 I'm finding that boss fights are pretty easy and that it's the trash instead that's giving me chills. Even after I get the drops I want out of there, I'll probably still try to tank Shadow Labs on a regular basis, just to stay sharp.
Back in the Pre-3.0 days, Botanica was a looming shadow of doom for me. For most of my DPS career, I was running under a tankadin who's a good friend of mine. We ran it daily on Heroic after Mechanar's badge-count was nerfed. Botanica was his playground, and we eventually got so good at it that we could clear it within 40 minutes. Once I got my warrior, I worried that I'd never be able to live up to that kind of efficiency, due to how bad warrior AoE was back then. Last night dispelled any doubts I had about a warrior performing as well as a paladin in Bot. I can't wait to try heroic Bot when I get some better gear and see if I can't match his clear time.
Mechanar was pretty much a joke for the most part. I only had minor troubles with Capacitus, and that was more of a "oops, I was a little off on my positioning".The thing I found common about the two TK instances was that I was running them the same way my prot pally and feral druid friends had been for months and months. I took the same routes, did the same general strategies. It all worked beautifully.
Tonight, I'm off to Gruuls/Mags to try my hand at replacing the last of my 60 blues and (I'm hoping) finally getting 490 Def so that I can start running Heroics, and maybe tank one Kara before WotLK hits.
Happy Tanking!
- Trysti
The morning I turned 70, I got carried through Kara by my guild (I was 8th on the DPS meter, yay!). Although it wasn't the clean sweep that I wanted, I managed to pick up a few important Prot pieces (Iron Gauntlets of the Maiden, King's Defender, Boots of Elusion). The day after, I went on a tanking spree. Shadow Labyrinth, Botanica, Mechanar. It was an absolute joy to tank these after having run some of them 500 times (approx).
Running Shadow Labs was an eye-opener. I had to watch how I pulled, and I'm not ashamed to say that I wiped on two occasions because my situational awareness wasn't at its highest. In pre-70 OL dungeons I could just grab a pack of mobs, AoE, and rock out. Boss-fights were the only parts of those runs that got hairy. Now at 70 I'm finding that boss fights are pretty easy and that it's the trash instead that's giving me chills. Even after I get the drops I want out of there, I'll probably still try to tank Shadow Labs on a regular basis, just to stay sharp.
Back in the Pre-3.0 days, Botanica was a looming shadow of doom for me. For most of my DPS career, I was running under a tankadin who's a good friend of mine. We ran it daily on Heroic after Mechanar's badge-count was nerfed. Botanica was his playground, and we eventually got so good at it that we could clear it within 40 minutes. Once I got my warrior, I worried that I'd never be able to live up to that kind of efficiency, due to how bad warrior AoE was back then. Last night dispelled any doubts I had about a warrior performing as well as a paladin in Bot. I can't wait to try heroic Bot when I get some better gear and see if I can't match his clear time.
Mechanar was pretty much a joke for the most part. I only had minor troubles with Capacitus, and that was more of a "oops, I was a little off on my positioning".The thing I found common about the two TK instances was that I was running them the same way my prot pally and feral druid friends had been for months and months. I took the same routes, did the same general strategies. It all worked beautifully.
Tonight, I'm off to Gruuls/Mags to try my hand at replacing the last of my 60 blues and (I'm hoping) finally getting 490 Def so that I can start running Heroics, and maybe tank one Kara before WotLK hits.
Happy Tanking!
- Trysti
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
3.0 - A more in-depth look.
Okay, as promised, here's some more in-depth thoughts on the new patch.
Barbershop
As I mentioned before, it's really a nifty little feature. For those of us who've had our characters for a long time and want a change every now and again, it's pretty cool. Lots of opportunities to color co-ordinate your hair color/style with your armor. Is it a huge thing? Not really. But it's nice that Blizzard tossed it in.
Achievements
At first, I was really excited by this. REALLY excited. After scrolling through a bunch of the achievements though, I realized that a lot of the achievements were really lame. Only a few piqued my interests, and they were mostly PvP ones that looked pretty hard (which makes it all the more fun). Maybe when WotLK hits, we'll get some cooler ones. I was really hoping for best run time or 4-man/3-manning type achievements, but so far, I aint seeing em.
Glyphs
Where do I start? With all the so-called homogenization going on with tanking classes, glyphs really let you be unique. Now, I can hear the arguement "After we all figure out the best glyphs, everyone will have the same ones". Well, my counter-arguement is as follows. Right now, we get 2 Major, 3 Minor slots at 70.
Here's a list of the Prot relevant Major and Minor Glyphs.
Major
Glyph of Blocking
Glyph of Revenge
Glyph of Heroic Strike
Glyph of Last Stand
Glyph of Devastate
Glyph of Rapid Charge
Glyph of Sunder Armor
Glyph of Cleaving
Glyph of Resonating Power
Minor Glyphs
Glyph of Bloodrage
Glyph of Thunder Clap
Glyph of Charge
Glyph of Battle
As you can see, there's a lot to choose from. Granted, as we progress to 80, we might see that a few of these aren't quite up to snuff or that what we took before will be replaced with something else once it becomes available.For example, a Glyph of Blocking replacing a Glyph of Devastate. Different people will want to use different set-ups for different things, because there's only so many slots to put the glyphs into.
I personally am using Glyph of Sunder Armor, Glyph of Rapid Charge, Glyph of Charge, and Glyph of Thunder Clap right now. When I hit 70, I'll toss in Glyph of Bloodrage. When I hit 80, I'll throw in Glyph of Blocking and replace Rapid Charge with Resonating Power. I'm doing this because I want more AoE power, because I find it fun to do, and I imagine that a lot of stuff in Northrend will require it. Someone else might instead choose Glyph of Revenge and Glyph of Heroic Strike and Glyph of Blocking for an "infinite" rage combo. Regardless, there's enough Major glyphs to go around right now that everyone can pretty much pick and choose what they like.
AoE
The new prot talents are the most important change in 3.0. I remember a few months ago, when I was leveling my original warrior to 70, I had issues taking on more than three targets. I had to use CC in instances like Ramparts and Blood Furnace. Well, the last two days have shown me how big of a change 3.0 has brought in for us Prot warriors. I've been running Ramps and BF almost non-stop, and aside from the first run, I've never had to ask anyone to sheep/trap/sap/repentance/seduce/etc anything. If my healer was up to snuff, I could pull 2-3 groups at a time and by spamming tclap, shockwave and cleaves, hold them all. Right now, you can pull as many mobs as your gear will allow for. My solo record at the moment is 13 Buzzards in Helfire at once, I imagine the number will get significantly higher as I get closer to 70 and my gear starts getting more optimized for tanking. Once that happens, I fully intend to go do the SM challenge and see if I can get through it.
- Trysti
Barbershop
As I mentioned before, it's really a nifty little feature. For those of us who've had our characters for a long time and want a change every now and again, it's pretty cool. Lots of opportunities to color co-ordinate your hair color/style with your armor. Is it a huge thing? Not really. But it's nice that Blizzard tossed it in.
Achievements
At first, I was really excited by this. REALLY excited. After scrolling through a bunch of the achievements though, I realized that a lot of the achievements were really lame. Only a few piqued my interests, and they were mostly PvP ones that looked pretty hard (which makes it all the more fun). Maybe when WotLK hits, we'll get some cooler ones. I was really hoping for best run time or 4-man/3-manning type achievements, but so far, I aint seeing em.
Glyphs
Where do I start? With all the so-called homogenization going on with tanking classes, glyphs really let you be unique. Now, I can hear the arguement "After we all figure out the best glyphs, everyone will have the same ones". Well, my counter-arguement is as follows. Right now, we get 2 Major, 3 Minor slots at 70.
Here's a list of the Prot relevant Major and Minor Glyphs.
Major
Glyph of Blocking
Glyph of Revenge
Glyph of Heroic Strike
Glyph of Last Stand
Glyph of Devastate
Glyph of Rapid Charge
Glyph of Sunder Armor
Glyph of Cleaving
Glyph of Resonating Power
Minor Glyphs
Glyph of Bloodrage
Glyph of Thunder Clap
Glyph of Charge
Glyph of Battle
As you can see, there's a lot to choose from. Granted, as we progress to 80, we might see that a few of these aren't quite up to snuff or that what we took before will be replaced with something else once it becomes available.For example, a Glyph of Blocking replacing a Glyph of Devastate. Different people will want to use different set-ups for different things, because there's only so many slots to put the glyphs into.
I personally am using Glyph of Sunder Armor, Glyph of Rapid Charge, Glyph of Charge, and Glyph of Thunder Clap right now. When I hit 70, I'll toss in Glyph of Bloodrage. When I hit 80, I'll throw in Glyph of Blocking and replace Rapid Charge with Resonating Power. I'm doing this because I want more AoE power, because I find it fun to do, and I imagine that a lot of stuff in Northrend will require it. Someone else might instead choose Glyph of Revenge and Glyph of Heroic Strike and Glyph of Blocking for an "infinite" rage combo. Regardless, there's enough Major glyphs to go around right now that everyone can pretty much pick and choose what they like.
AoE
The new prot talents are the most important change in 3.0. I remember a few months ago, when I was leveling my original warrior to 70, I had issues taking on more than three targets. I had to use CC in instances like Ramparts and Blood Furnace. Well, the last two days have shown me how big of a change 3.0 has brought in for us Prot warriors. I've been running Ramps and BF almost non-stop, and aside from the first run, I've never had to ask anyone to sheep/trap/sap/repentance/seduce/etc anything. If my healer was up to snuff, I could pull 2-3 groups at a time and by spamming tclap, shockwave and cleaves, hold them all. Right now, you can pull as many mobs as your gear will allow for. My solo record at the moment is 13 Buzzards in Helfire at once, I imagine the number will get significantly higher as I get closer to 70 and my gear starts getting more optimized for tanking. Once that happens, I fully intend to go do the SM challenge and see if I can get through it.
- Trysti
3.0 Impressions.
Okay, I'm writing this quickly during a break, so this is just a quickie before I have to head back in.
Server issues were pretty severe, so I only managed to get about an hour of playtime last night (at around 1am no less). Here's some quick notes. Expect an in-depth post later tonight about the following tonight.
- Barbershop is a nifty (addictive) feature.
- Glyphs are amazing.
- Warriors can definitely AoE tank/grind now.
- The new prot tree is a thing of beauty, they really trimmed out some high-fat talents.
- Shield Slam is the cornerstone spell now
- Revised Shield Block is a pretty radical change.
- Achievements system not so impressive.
Server issues were pretty severe, so I only managed to get about an hour of playtime last night (at around 1am no less). Here's some quick notes. Expect an in-depth post later tonight about the following tonight.
- Barbershop is a nifty (addictive) feature.
- Glyphs are amazing.
- Warriors can definitely AoE tank/grind now.
- The new prot tree is a thing of beauty, they really trimmed out some high-fat talents.
- Shield Slam is the cornerstone spell now
- Revised Shield Block is a pretty radical change.
- Achievements system not so impressive.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Renovations.
So, I've been looking at the site recently, and been thinking "God damn, this could be so much better" First off, I want to make the site a little prettier (aka a nice looking banner at the top). I'm also going to have to go in and clean up my links section, seeing as this is no longer a "rogue" site. I need to put in a hit-counter cause I'll be honest, I wonder how many people actually read this (Answer: The number isn't what I think). I also plan to go back and re-write most of my earlier stuff. Hopefully you'll be seeing some changes soon, all of em for a much better and smoother reading experience.
tl;dr - Trysti is changing the site a bit. Yay?
tl;dr - Trysti is changing the site a bit. Yay?
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
[General] Revisiting Tanking Roles
With the wealth of information coming out about Wrath of the Lich King and even Patch 3.0, I started to look back at a post I did a while ago about tanking roles.
Now, before I get into some QQing (as some guildies would say), I'm going to say that a lot of the changes are good. The other tanking classes get their leg up and can stand as equals with Warriors as main tanks. Gone will be the days where you had to have a certain set-up in order to get through an encounter. Granted this means more competition amongst tanks for raid lots, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. If anything, it'll lead to stronger tanks because only the best of any given tanking class will earn their lead spot, as opposed to priority being given to Warriors because they were the favored class for most encounters.
Now for a bit of QQ mixed with positives. Blizzard is homogenizing tanking classes in order to prevent the old "Warriors on top" hierarchy that prevailed through Classic and TBC. As a "new" warrior, I'm no longer going to have the guaranteed slot. As I said before, this is (in the end) good for me, as I will have to be that much better than the other guild tanks in order to earn my keep. On the flipside, Paladins are no longer the only tanks that can AoE. Blizzard was quite kind and decided to remove the target limit on Thunderclap and Swipe. I'm fairly certain that Death Knights will have some sort of AoE threat ability as well.
My main QQ is gear competition. In TBC, I only had to fight off other warriors for gear, seeing as pallies had completely different itemization. What I've seen so far with Wotlk Plate tanking gear, is that Pally gear = Warrior gear = Death Knight gear. The Tier 7 tanking sets are very telling in that the stats and defensive stats are virtually identical. Feel free to call me out on this, but I've always felt that Tier gear is supposed to be a good example of what sort of stats Blizzard wants you to be using. Looking at the Pally T7 stuff, I'm taking a wild guess that the other pally tanking gear is gonna follow similiar itemization. My tankadin friend is overjoyed (of course) that he will now have more opportunities to gear up. I find his idea that tanking gear was scarce a little strange, because TBC offered a wealth of non-raid gear that was raid quality (2.4 Badges, SWP/BT level Crafted Epics).
So, over-all, I am looking forward to 3.0 and WotlK afterwards. It's going to be very competitive for tanks, but at least now everyone will have a fair shot (assuming equal skill/gear).
-Trysti
Now, before I get into some QQing (as some guildies would say), I'm going to say that a lot of the changes are good. The other tanking classes get their leg up and can stand as equals with Warriors as main tanks. Gone will be the days where you had to have a certain set-up in order to get through an encounter. Granted this means more competition amongst tanks for raid lots, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. If anything, it'll lead to stronger tanks because only the best of any given tanking class will earn their lead spot, as opposed to priority being given to Warriors because they were the favored class for most encounters.
Now for a bit of QQ mixed with positives. Blizzard is homogenizing tanking classes in order to prevent the old "Warriors on top" hierarchy that prevailed through Classic and TBC. As a "new" warrior, I'm no longer going to have the guaranteed slot. As I said before, this is (in the end) good for me, as I will have to be that much better than the other guild tanks in order to earn my keep. On the flipside, Paladins are no longer the only tanks that can AoE. Blizzard was quite kind and decided to remove the target limit on Thunderclap and Swipe. I'm fairly certain that Death Knights will have some sort of AoE threat ability as well.
My main QQ is gear competition. In TBC, I only had to fight off other warriors for gear, seeing as pallies had completely different itemization. What I've seen so far with Wotlk Plate tanking gear, is that Pally gear = Warrior gear = Death Knight gear. The Tier 7 tanking sets are very telling in that the stats and defensive stats are virtually identical. Feel free to call me out on this, but I've always felt that Tier gear is supposed to be a good example of what sort of stats Blizzard wants you to be using. Looking at the Pally T7 stuff, I'm taking a wild guess that the other pally tanking gear is gonna follow similiar itemization. My tankadin friend is overjoyed (of course) that he will now have more opportunities to gear up. I find his idea that tanking gear was scarce a little strange, because TBC offered a wealth of non-raid gear that was raid quality (2.4 Badges, SWP/BT level Crafted Epics).
So, over-all, I am looking forward to 3.0 and WotlK afterwards. It's going to be very competitive for tanks, but at least now everyone will have a fair shot (assuming equal skill/gear).
-Trysti
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Happy Returns (Sorta)
Well, a month ago, my WoW account got hacked, and all my gear got tossed for gold. Then it got hacked again, and I lost control of it. Seeing as I was violating ToS (It was in my friend's name, not mine), I lost a year and a half of work and decided to say "Bugger it, I'm quitting."
Well, I've come back. With my own account this time, so if anything goes south, I can call up Blizzard and tell them to stop being silly. On the flipside, this also means that I have to re-raise a few characters. So, for now, this will primarily be a Warrior blog, with perhaps a few posts here and there about other classes as I see fit.
Tah for now
- Trysti
Well, I've come back. With my own account this time, so if anything goes south, I can call up Blizzard and tell them to stop being silly. On the flipside, this also means that I have to re-raise a few characters. So, for now, this will primarily be a Warrior blog, with perhaps a few posts here and there about other classes as I see fit.
Tah for now
- Trysti
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