Author: Kurn

Kurn's Q&A Time

Kurn / / q&a, ramblings

So I’ve been poking through my web server stats and have noticed a bunch of interesting questions coming to me as the referral through search engines that brought people here. I thought I’d take a few of them and answer them, since many include keywords that I’ve talked about, but haven’t necessarily actually answered.

#1) “aspect of the wild stack with gift of the wild”

Nope, sorry. Aspect of the Wild and Nature Resistance Totem do not stack with each other, nor with Gift or Mark of the Wild. Paladin auras for Frost, Fire and Shadow Resistance also don’t stack with Shadow Protection from priests, totems from shammies or Gift or Mark of the Wild. I know, I know. It’s sad, isn’t it?

#2) “resetting cross realm instances”

Seriously, I don’t know how. Anyone out there know?

#3) “first gear from emblems of triumph mage”

Honestly, it depends on your gear. I went for the shoulders first because I knew I was scrubby and the ilvl 232 shoulders (T9 from badges) at least give me the appearance of some kind of legitimacy.

#4) “best way to dps as a hunter while moving alot patch 3.3”

Of course, hunter DPS will always be better while standing still, so we can get our autoshots and steady shots off. The best way, IMHO, to DPS in a fight with lots of movement is to time your instants. Like, step, shoot, step, shoot, if you can. Or, just get to your destination ASAP. Use Kill Command for your pet while you’re moving and consider Rapid Fire once you’re at your destination, unless you have a specific burn phase you want to use it on.

#5) “holy paladin improved judgements”

DON’T TAKE THIS TALENT IF YOU ARE A HOLY PALADIN. See: http://kurn.apotheosis-now.com/?p=317

#6) “how long does it take to run icecrown citadel”

That depends. The first four bosses, in a non-PUG, should take about 60-90 minutes, if you’re familiar with the fights, either on 10 or 25. Festergut, Rotface and Putricide are a good deal more challenging than the first four fights. My current guild has not yet gotten Putricide with 5 attempts used this current reset and I do not believe anyone on my server or my past two servers have gotten him yet on 25-man. He is apparently doable (though not easy) on 10-man. It took my guild about 80-90 minutes of attempts to get Rotface down and about an hour to get Festergut down, though half the raid had 10-man experience.

#7) “which icc dungeon has the vendor”

It’s actually inside the raid instance. Basically, go up the front steps to Icecrown Citadel, past the battering ram. That’s the raid entrance. Any two people (as long as they’re both over level 10) can make a raid, and you don’t need a clear raid to get in, either. So party up with someone, make it a raid and then zone in. Your tier vendors are scattered throughout the first room. And there’s a portal to Dalaran over on your right, too. (Note the Argent Crusade repairman for those not exalted with the Ashen Verdict — cheaper repairs if you’re exalted with the crusade!)

#8) “how we get t8 paladin”

Okay, I chuckled. Run Ulduar. Or kill Emalon.

As a reference, here’s where the tier is located in Wrath content and how to get it, apart from getting it in VOA:

Tier 7 – Naxxramas, Obsidian Sanctum (gloves)
Tier 8 – Ulduar
Tier 9 – Three ways: a) Emblems of Triumph for the ilvl 232 version. b) Trial of the Crusader for a Trophy of the Crusade, which can be combined with Emblems of Triumph for the ilvl 245 version. c) Trial of the Grand Crusader, killing Anub on heroic, for a class-restricted token/token/token that can be exchanged for the ilvl 258 version.
Tier 10 – All tier must be bought with Emblems of Frost for the ilvl 251 version. Once you have this version, a class-restricted token (same classes as T6, T7, T8, T9), which drops from end-bosses of wings, so like Saurfang and Putricide, can be combined with that item for the ilvl 264 version. This DESTROYS the ilvl 251 version, including enchants, so when you upgrade, bear that in mind. Once you have the ilvl 264 version and heroic modes open up (after killing Arthas) you will be able to access other tokens that, combined with the ilvl 264 version, will give you ilvl 277 versions.

#9) “how to get aggro as dk damn fast on boss”

Well, I’m not a death knight, but make sure you’re in Frost Presence (you’d be surprised how many DK tanks don’t use it) and ensure that you drop Death and Decay. Then I think you go about applying your diseases. I could be wrong about the diseases, but D&D is a high-threat move on a 30 second cooldown that lasts for 10 seconds. You should be able to establish aggro pretty quickly in the first 10 seconds.

#10) “eye of the beast in icecrown citadel”

I presume you mean Eyes of the Beast, meaning using your pet to look around and such. Standing outside of the Plagueworks the other night, waiting for the hunters to pull Stinky or Precious, I was whispering to my RL friend (and healing lead) about how long the hunters were taking and I laughed, remembering that I used to be THAT HUNTER who had to do the dreaded pet pull for Baron Geddon and Shazzrah in Molten Core. So I was like “pet pull!” and my friend replied that that’s what one of the hunters was doing. :) I was like “YES! Way to go hunter! Kickin’ it old school!!”

And for what it’s worth, the TankSpot video on how to kill Stinky and Precious:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKe2N7wKxKs

#11) “reset dungeon with clique”

OOH, a question I can totally answer! As long as it’s not about resetting cross-realm dungeons… If you use Clique and have bound something to your right-click, you may find that you are unable to, you know, right click on people’s portraits to trade them, inspect them, etc, or even your own character portrait in order to leave group or reset an instance. Open Clique. Go to Frames. Untick anything you don’t habitually click on in order to heal someone. For example, I NEVER heal through portraits and always heal through Grid, so I untick any frames that don’t have “Grid” in the title. That means that your mouse bindings are only active when clicking on the frames you use to heal with.

#12) “new voa 3.3 patch”

Not sure when, but it should match up with the new arena season. There will be a new boss, Toravon the Ice Watcher, to fight that will drop ilvl 251 Tier 10 (on 10-man) and ilvl 264 Tier 10 (on 25-man), as well as PVP pieces and 2 Emblems of Frost on both 10 and 25-man.

#13) “onyxia how many tanks healers”

10-man, you only really need two of each if you’re adequately geared. Otherwise, 2 tanks and 3 healers. For 25-man, 2 tanks (if the tanks don’t suck) and 5-6 healers. If the tanks suck or you’re unsure about them, get 3 tanks. You shouldn’t need more than six healers at the very most.

#14) “how to dps a kited boss”

Very, very slowly. ;) Just kidding. It depends on who’s doing the kiting. Is it a hunter? We have a taunt, so we can keep aggro almost indefinitely — as long as we don’t run out of room to run. Is it a shammy? Watch their threat and pray they’re using Frost Shock. Is it a mage? You will probably eventually surpass the mage’s threat. Possibly with a warlock as well, unless they have time to cast Searing Pain.

Or, if you just mean a traditional tank having to move around a lot, use a lot of instant abilities and get to your destination ASAP.

#15) “guide to halls of reflection heroic as healer”

I’ve tanked it more than I’ve healed it, to be honest. But here are some tips specific to healers, to go hand-in-hand with Kurn’s Guide on How to Successfully Clear Heroic Halls of Reflection Without Being Lame and Cheap.

a) If you’re a PALADIN: Beacon and shield the tank, keep them up and keep the FoL hots ticking. DO NOT worry about the poisons too much and ask a shammy, if you have one in the group, to keep Cleansing Totem down. Once the tank establishes aggro, feel free to hit Holy Wrath and stun all the adds. Make liberal use of any racials to get you out of CC, like Every Man For Himself. Save your bubble for the first boss if you can, if you have Divine Sacrifice. Bubble, DivSac just before a fear. For Marwyn, do not cleanse the magic effect (Shared Suffering) unless people are mostly topped off. Heal first, THEN cleanse. For the waves at the end, turn evil on an abomination if you have a spare global. Use Divine Plea on the run. Still use Holy Wrath when you can. Use Bubble/DivSac if you have it just after the second wave spawns on the last wall.

b) If you’re a PRIEST: Stick close to your tank and be prepared to shackle a ranged (Phantom Mage or Tortured Rifleman). Make liberal use of Guardian Spirit or Pain Suppression. Prayer of Mending is beautiful here, as well. Obviously, you can’t cleanse poisons, so also ask a shammy to drop Cleansing Totem if you have a shammy in your group. Make sure to use your Shadowfiend early on in waves in case you need it again on a boss. Fear Ward YOURSELF for the fears because you’re not going to have as much health as everyone else. Always heal yourself first after a fear on the first boss. For Marwyn, like pallies, do not cleanse the magic effect (Shared Suffering) unless people are mostly topped off. Heal first, THEN cleanse. For the waves at the end, shackle an Abomination if you can, but it’s not the end of the world if you can’t. Expect EVERYONE to have aggro at the last wall and toss out renews, PoM, a PoH if you can, CoH if you’re holy.

c) If you’re a SHAMAN: Drop Cleansing Totem. Chain Heal. Win. ;) Seriously, though, Cleansing Totem is your best friend. Falric’s fears aren’t mitigated by Tremor Totem (they’re a horror effect, I believe), so don’t worry about that. ES the tank, obviously, and make sure you hit riptide and then CH that target for the boost to CH from RT, which will hopefully chain through most of your group. Nature’s Swiftness/Healing Wave at your discretion, usually on yourself or a squishy DPS after a fear. Make sure you decurse Cursed Arrow or any stacks from Well of Corruption. Heroism/Bloodlust is best used when the SECOND group of adds spawn on the last wall on the chase fight, as is your Earth Elemental. Cleanse Curse of Doom as needed and basically do what you can to stay alive. Pop your self-rez if you die and drop mana tide immediately. You cannot be out of commission for long.

d) If you’re a DRUID: Use Abolish Poison if you have no shaman in your group to get rid of those pesky poisons. Keep a Rejuv on yourself and the tank at all times and save Swiftmend for yourself or the tank if you get in trouble. Wild Growth on cooldown during Falric will go a long way towards mitigating the fear damage. Decurse Cursed Arrow and stacks from Well of Corruption. Do not hesitate to use Nature’s Swiftness/Healing Touch on yourself or your tank at any point in time. You can likely do the boss fights with 2 DPS and you can always battle rez someone, so your priorities consist of you and the tank. For the chase fight, keep your hots rolling, WG on cooldown, because everyone is going to get aggro and will take at least some damage.

That’s it for now. Hope you found the search terms as amusing as I did! :)

I am victorious!

Kurn / / professions, ramblings

At 2:52am, I dropped my 450 mining.

And I picked up skinning.

At 9:11am, I hit 450 skinning.

Despite the gold ads on the site, this is the guide I used. Comprehensive, good use of map images. I’m very happy with it. Of course, it helped to know three things:

1) I had +10 skinning from Finkle’s Skinner.

2) I had +5 skinning from Enchant Gloves – Gatherer.

3) Once you hit 415 skinning, you can skin any mob in the game, since that’s what allows you to skin level 83s. Anything beyond that is just for the 40 crit strike rating you get for maxing it out.

So when I hit 350, I headed to Northrend, knowing I could skin anything in Borean. By 390, I went, as the guide suggested, to Sholazar. And then I did the math. When I hit 400, I went to Storm Peaks and started killing dragons and rhinos. Good times!

I even went on a run to Heroic Violet Hold (dragons! Skinning of dragons! Unfortunately, there was a lame druid who was skinning for all he was worth and I missed several opportunities.) in an effort to keep skilling up.

Amusing conversation from that run:

Every time I get into a group with a paladin, which is often, I spam that macro. MOST of the time I get it off in time for the paladin to notice before he or she starts buffing. I try to save on people’s symbols of kings. :P

Anyways. 450 skinning. So THERE, Fad. Toldja! ;D

Kurn and Professions

Kurn / / professions, ramblings

When I started playing, I started with my hunter, Kurn, who picked up Skinning and Leatherworking.

This combination worked beautifully for me for over a year.

And then I realized I needed more money than skinning was providing for me.

So, on the advice of a then-guildie, I switched to mining, for thorium ore and arcane crystal goodness.

That lasted a couple of months. Then just before BC came out, literally just a couple of days, I went back to skinning. I reasoned that I needed to fund my LWing somehow and my brother was a LW, too.

Once both my brother and I hit 375 LW in BC, I dropped herbalism on the pally for JC and dropped skinning on the hunter for… mining.

And that’s how it’s been since May of 2007 or something like that.

Then, I levelled a shaman, whose professions are mining and herbalism, to supply my paladin with ore and herbs for her JC/alchemy.

For some reason, my toons are all basically on the same server. So I have 2 herbalists (druid and shammy) and 2 miners (shammy and hunter). But I have no skinner.

Since druids are hax at herbing with flight form, I didn’t want to drop that on the druid. So that left herbing on the shammy or mining on either the shammy or the hunter.

Dropping either on the shammy would result in the shammy no longer being THE farm toon for my paladin.

So after some thinking about it, I did it. I dropped mining, AGAIN, and picked up skinning, AGAIN.

330 skinning. I’m pushing for 450 before I sleep.

><

PUGs, Azjol-Nerub and Free Loot

Kurn / / facepalm, lfg, ramblings

I had what was possibly the strangest PUG experience I’ve had to date when I was on my hunter today. I queued up for the random and went mining in Icecrown as I waited.

So finally, after about 13 minutes, up comes my random, which is already in progress. No big, I figure, at least it’ll be a faster two Emblems of Frost than normal, right?

I port in and the first thing I see is the party leader saying “OH NOES WE LOST 1100 DPS” and someone else saying “QQ”.

Whatever, I figure they wiped on the second boss or something.

So I hit Aspect of the Cheetah and run on down.

Problem 1: There’s Hadronox trash.

So I’m like “Dudes, there’s trash here at the second boss.”

“QQ”

… okay, so do they– wait a minute. The ground is shuddering. In fact, I recognize that animation. That’s Anub’arak’s spike animation. Not only have these guys not waited for me and pulled the last boss, but I’m subjected to his mechanics and there’s TRASH between me and the group.

What the flipping hell is going on here?

My group informs me I should stay above for my free badges. Not being entirely convinced, by a group of people who appear to have deliberately bugged the second boss, that I WILL receive badges, etc, if I don’t participate in the fight, I consider my options.

After about 10 seconds or so, I pop an Invisibility Potion that I still had on me and run past the trash, jump down the hole and am at least put into combat by being on the staircase leading down to Anub’arak’s area. And there are still spikes trying to impale me. :P

The fight ends, I get 1 Emblem of Triumph, 2 Emblems of Frost and the gold I normally do. I, like all the others, hit greed on the Orb and disenchant on the epic and the blue.

15 seconds later, I am the proud new owner of a Frozen Orb, an Abyss Crystal and a Dream Shard.

I put the “QQ” person on ignore, as well as the group leader. I honestly don’t ever want to run into these people ever again.

But I will admit, that was a hilariously small amount of effort for my daily random.

Random Dungeon Tank Failure

Kurn / / facepalm, lfg, tanks

I had two bad tanking experiences today while running my typical four random dungeons on my four 80s. And no, one of them was not while I was tanking, thank you very much. ;)

The first one was while I was on my hunter. Apart from the appallingly open racist comments from the group at large (three were from one guild and all of them were being racist and otherwise emitting perjoratives), the tank couldn’t hold aggro worth a damn. I mean, I really wonder if the dude was in Defensive Stance. Every class apart from warriors allows you to plainly see if the tank in question has their threat ability on — Frost Presence, Righteous Fury, bear form — but not warriors. Anyways, even after misdirecting mobs to him AND assisting him for DPS targets, I still ended up climbing the aggro list extremely quickly.

Of course, we blew through heroic UK without any real issues, so that’s not a huge failure. Clearly a mediocre tank, though, and I put him and his guildies on ignore so I wouldn’t get stuck with them on this toon again.

Moral of the story: l2threat.

The second tank failure was actually a very good tank, in that he used cooldowns and held aggro. Except that he was a total failure at keeping an eye out for me, his healer (on my shammy). He was basically running off through heroic Forge of Souls without me, not paying attention to either my mana pool (which only dipped low once, but not even a PAUSE before running into the first boss encounter). At one point, I stopped to drink and he ran off and some mob has AOE damage so one of the rogues died before I got there. So I healed, the mobs died, I tried to rez the rogue.

Tank runs off into a room and it takes me forever to get there and I blow my cooldowns. “You realize I was out of range because I was rezzing the rogue, right?”

Rogue who died: “I ran back it’s okay.”

Tank: “y did the rogue die in 1st place?”

Me: “Because you ran off without waiting for me to drink.”

No response, obviously.

Then on the first boss, they didn’t kill the corrupt soul thingy. Which, okay, no big deal. They all needed on the bag he dropped, so I did, too, although I typically greed on that stuff.

Thus far, just another dumbass tank who doesn’t care about anything, right? Nothing to worry about too much if I keep up with him. Well, on the last boss, when they practically killed the tank through the mirror effect thing, I got concerned. I was already hating the tank and the group, but clearly, they didn’t understand the mechanics of this fight if the tank was almost killed by the mirror.

The rogue who’d already died on trash died on the last boss because of the mirror, a little later on.

And so did I, when I got the mirror afterwards.

I think my PRECISE words were:

“Wow, l2 stop dps.”

Not another word after that. I didn’t pop my reincarnation until after the boss died, then started rezzing the rogue.

Whereas I would normally greed on the Frozen Orb, I needed, after they all did. And I hit disenchant for something (and won the shard). And lo and behold, the Needle-Encrusted Scorpion dropped. One of the rogues had it already and automatically passed, but the three others, INCLUDING THE PALADIN TANK, hit Need.

“Well, screw that,” I said to myself, and hit Need. I have an enhancement set and spec and this entire group, all belonging to the same guild, had made the run extremely unpleasant for me.

So when I won it, I grinned to myself and left the group. Turns out I also got the orb, meaning I won everything off that boss. Why can’t my paladin have my shammy’s rolls?

Anyways, I promptly scrolled up in my chat log and put the idiot tank on ignore so as to never group with him again.

Moral of the story: Tanks should keep an eye on their healer’s mana AND their physical proximity to them.

I honestly wonder what the hell I posted about before the random dungeon/LFG feature came out…

Wow.

Kurn / / dungeons, hunters, paladins, ramblings, world events

The mind boggles. I just tanked Heroic Halls of Reflection, not using the wussy LOS strat, with a total pug. My healer was a priest who still had blues.

And we didn’t wipe. No one died. Everyone worked together as a team.

Granted, we then did the wussy ledge strat for the escape bit, but considering how well they’d done on Falric and Marwyn, I didn’t complain too much. They deserved an easy run.

Good to see some people still know how to use their class abilities.

Also, I got BB King on my hunter! Coming soon, a video of the event, because I frapsed it. :)

Another 80 and some musings.

Kurn / / dungeons, general, hunters, mages, paladins, ramblings, shamans

Well, the mage is 80 and it’s led me to some thinking about my alts and how I play this game.

My first toon, forever my “main”, even if I don’t raid with it, was Kurnmogh and I love my hunter all day long. Kurn and I have been through it all together. But sometime in there, I rolled a bank alt toon, which ended up being a human female paladin, named Madrana. Levelling Madrana (as holy!), back in the day, was a welcome reprieve from farming Essence of Air out in Silithus, which is basically what I’d do on Kurn when I wasn’t raiding or couldn’t get a guild group to go to Strat UD (my favourite instance) or UBRS (for my bloody T0 chestpiece!).

Madrana got to be a pretty awesome healer, pre-BC, even if most of her heals were Flash of Light and I didn’t understand half the mechanics of a pally.

Burning Crusade launched and my brother rolled a human warrior on a PVP server, where some of his RL friends played on Horde side. His goal: to level up and kick their asses. I know, my brother is a dork. So he calls me up when he’s level six or so and is like “I NEED A HEALER COME HEAL ME!”

Having already levelled a healer to 60, there was no way I was going to do it again (haha, I was so sure back then…) so he encouraged me to roll up a DPS class. And so my mage was born. I hit 30 and then discovered the utter chaos of Southshore on a PVP server. So I left Darkspear and brought the mage “home” to Eldre’Thalas — and my brother brought his warrior over.

At some point during this time, I also rolled a shammy, who would eventually be Katarah, but she started life as Shockra. I know, horrible name, eh?

I got the hunter, pally and mage up to 70 in BC but ignored the shammy.

In Wrath, I got the hunter, pally, shammy up to 80 and then got the priest going. And I’m getting a druid up there, too. :P

I think that, for the most part, playing my alts (not necessarily levelling them, but playing them) is my break from my raiding “job”. I raid 12 hours or so a week on Madrana and I heal, so it’s work. I like to get Kurn into whatever raids I can because I like to take pride in my hunter and I like to see how I’m doing compared to people playing their toons full time.

I got the shammy up because I wanted to understand healing better, from a shammy perspective. I’m not quite sure that I do, but I definitely know that I can’t DPS worth a damn on the shammy. ;)

And then I started playing the mage, for fun. And with the advent of 3.3 and the dungeon finder, I was having a BLAST going through instances on my mage. True, there was usually a wait, but I loved learning these stupid instances again from the perspective of a pure caster. I’ve sheeped things! I’ve provided food! I’ve buffed intellect! Good times.

Now that there are the four 80s (whose recent achievements are on the right over there… the order is Madrana, Kurn, the shammy and the mage), with a fifth to level by Cataclysm (stupid druid), I have plans.

Madrana is saving her Emblems of Frost for tier gear, first and foremost. Kurn, meanwhile, is upgrading via Emblem of Frost gear from the vendor, not going for tier armor yet, because hey, I don’t have access to the marks that drop in ICC.

Kurn is also my leatherworker, so after enough rep runs and such, I should be honored with Ashen Verdict and be able to buy patterns for various boots — boots that I’ll use on Kurn, the shammy AND Madrana, probably, because the crafted plate boots just aren’t as good as the crafted caster mail boots.

So how to fund the purchase of Primordial Saronite and such? Simple. The shammy and the mage will be using their Emblems of Frost for Primordial Saronite and finish gearing themselves up with Emblems of Triumph.

Both of them should get 19 Emblems of Frost a week, assuming no ICC runs, until the new VOA boss comes out (Tuesday?) at which point they’ll get 21 a week, one would presume. It’ll be slow, but at least I won’t have to spend 3000g on a single Primordial Saronite. I don’t know how many the shammy has, atm, but I’m pretty sure I’m into the 40s, so I’ll have enough to purchase the patterns as soon as Kurn hits honored.

So that’s the plan.

Also, I’m 18/0/53 on the mage. I’ve glyphed for Frostbolt, so it no longer slows (!) but causes 5% more damage, and I have Focus Magic and Torment the Weak (which I really didn’t understand, but TOTALLY do now — everything is a damn slow! Go go TTW!!). The mage’s achievements are hilarious, because I’m a brand-new 80, so everything I do is an achievement. Got a dungeon/raid emblem, achievement. Didn’t use the defense crystals in VH, achievement. Etc, etc. It cracks me up.

Happy new year, everyone. Looks to be an exciting year in terms of WoW. :D

It's a Winter Veil Miracle!

Kurn / / paladins, ramblings

Madrana actually got to heal something today when I queued for the random heroic!

Granted, it was Halls of Lightning and the DPS warrior and the mage kept stealing aggro from the DK tank and so they kept dying, but I actually got to heal a heroic! After queuing as a tank AND a healer!

The mind boggles.

In other news, it appears that after I submitted my guides to healing, tanking, DPSing and not failing at H-HoR to TenTonHammer, there has been some feedback and it’s looking mostly positive. I probably could have written them a bit better, but most of them were written while I was in queue for randoms on a DPS class. ;) So if you’re here because you followed the links from TenTonHammer, welcome! I hope you’ll stick around. :)

In yet other news, apparently people read this blog and did so before the links from TenTonHammer appeared. Colour me shocked. :) Saunder, over at Non-Squishy Heals, apparently takes issue with my request to paladins to use Greater Blessings, in lieu of cheap 10-minute buffs.

First off, wow, someone actually read my blog who wasn’t one of my old guildies or one of my old healers. Honestly, this is the most shocking thing of all. I’ve spent the last year or so writing into the ether and never even considered that other people would really read me. I think it’s because of Miss Medicina‘s not-really-a-meme-meme that I did back in October. Anyways, I digress.

Saunder gets pissy with me for requesting greater blessings. Here’s what I wrote in his comment section:

My primary issue (and reason for essentially telling people to use greater blessings) is that not everyone is as observant as you are. Most pallies I’ve been running with have given out 10m blessings that they let fall off. Frequently. If they buff at all.

If you’re willing to maintain buffs for the 20-25 minutes most random heroics last, good for you. I’m more addressing the players who don’t know what they’re doing and who will let a kings buff vanish, never to be seen again, after 10 minutes is up.

Personally, I just like to buff the once (assuming no deaths/wipes) and be done with it, but I suppose that really boils down to personal preference. I don’t yell at people to buff me with greaters, but I will nag if they fall off or I’m not rebuffed after a death.

Here’s the thing, though… I don’t get why anyone would buff 10-minute blessings when they could be doing 30-minute Greater blessings. Of course, if you’re the pally and I’m not, it’s up to you, so long as I always get your buff. Then I won’t gripe, I won’t complain, I certainly don’t bitch.

But even when levelling, while soloing on my paladin, I give myself greater blessings.

So, if indeed there are any paladins reading this thing, what do you think? Do you give out greater blessings in pugs or are you vigilant, like Saunder, and keep refreshing the 10-minute versions? And, most importantly, what are your reasons why?

(Also, if anyone would like to mention how they found this little blog of mine, assuming I was never guilded with you in the past, I’d love to know!)

How I Got 19 Emblems of Triumph in One Night

Kurn / / facepalm, gear, healing, ramblings, tanks

Due to the fact that I’ve been tanking so much lately, I’ve been working on my prot gear. Up ’till now, I’ve been using my Conqueror’s Aegis Breastplate. I’ve managed to upgrade my neck, my bracers and my legs for free out of Trial of the Crusader (25m regular) because ilvl 245 loot no longer costs us DKP and we’ve cleared it so often that most people don’t want any more tank gear. (WTB Satrina’s Impeding Scarab, but that’s a whole other story.)

So tonight, we do heroic Faction Champs and heroic Twins and I manage to win the roll on the Trophy of the Crusade off one of them. I was all excited that I’d finally get to upgrade my chestpiece (which is out of Ulduar… ugh.) to another ilvl 245 piece.

And then I realized I only had 56 Emblems of Triumph vs. the 75 I needed to turn in with my trophy for Turalyon’s Breastplate of Triumph. Since we finished the raid early, I decided I’d go for it. 19 badges isn’t that hard to get, not these days. Each random heroic you do (after the first, which I’d already done) gives you two extra badges. So if the average dungeon had 3 bosses, I’d only need to do 4 or so to ensure I’d get all 19 that I needed.

To try to make sure it was a relatively easy night, I decided not to queue as a tank. I just wanted to heal, get my chestpiece and go to bed.

First up, Utgarde Pinnacle. Great run. Fail of a hunter, though, name of Glyhm. Let us not only be in awe of his fail gear that is poorly gemmed and usually not enchanted, which includes Icy Scale Chestguard (!), nor should we only be in awe of his slightly strange spec and choice of professions (and the fact that one is nowhere near max level), but we should just sort of sit there in disbelief at this little exchange:

huntard1

I probably should have gone to bed after this run, because it was definitely an indication of how things were going to go. No one said anything in party chat after that, that’s how agog we all were.

Anyways, after that… no, wait, I’m sorry. I have to address the huntard.

Aspect of the Viper definitely drops your DPS low. It’s a short-term thing you use for about 20-25 seconds at a time to fill up your mana bar when it’s low. To allow you to regen mana without dropping your DPS would make you OP. Mages have Evocation, which reduces their DPS to 0 while they channel it. Warlocks lifetap, during which they only inflict damage on themselves, not the target. And rogues don’t have mana, so there you go, the 3 mana-using pure DPS classes all have ways of regaining mana that affects their DPS.

Funny how balanced that is, isn’t it? :P

Anyways, despite the fail hunter (who makes me glad I don’t run recount on Madrana, because I think I would have cried if I’d looked at the DPS meters), we finished Utgarde Pinnacle in 22 minutes. Six badges down, 13 to go, right?

On to Forge of Souls! I basically don’t have any issues with this group. It was probably the best group of the night and I’d essentially forgotten about it entirely because nothing bad happened. Another 4 badges down, 9 to go.

And then it was time for Ahn Kahet: The Old Kingdom.

Problem #1: The mage was a cheap bastard. No table, no Arcane Brilliance (just Arcane Intellect). Given that most runs go less than a half hour and are usually quick, I can forgive them this. But it still annoyed me.

Problem #2: The mage either had no idea how to decurse or had no idea where their decurse button was. They claimed to be on someone else’s computer, so maybe the latter is the reason that I NEVER GOT CURSE OF TONGUES REMOVED FROM ME, which led to my death and the death of the warlock shortly after the second boss.

Problem #3: The warlock never bothered to soulstone me (or anyone) or put down a soulwell.

Problem #4: It appeared that the rogue had never before done the instance. Which… is fine. Honestly, I’m okay with that. The problem I have is when people don’t ask. Never been to OK before? Fine. Tell me. Then I can tell you how not to die when the last dude casts insanity, so that you’re not going “omg wtf how come u were all mced?!?!”

Despite a near-wipe on the last guy (who bugged out and reset, so we got a second chance — and the rogue died AGAIN), we got through the instance. We didn’t do the heroic-only boss, so only 4 bosses and 2 extra emblems. Six emblems down, two more to go!

Whew.

So I queue up again, as a healer.

And then I see the Halls of Reflection loading screen. I sigh, wondering if I should just drop group and go to bed, but… I’m just two. freaking. emblems. from my shiny new chest. So I cross my fingers and brace myself for doing the dumbass LoS strat (I find that as the tank, you have much more pull in the decision-making process than as a healer. :P) and probably wiping a few times.

I zone in and I look around for the tank. Warrior has 27k health. Okay, not him. There’s a hunter, so that’s not the tank. A mage, nope, not the tank. The DK has 29k health. And I know I didn’t queue up as a tank. So yeah, the DK is going to try to tank Heroic HoR with 29k health — which includes kings.

We gave it two tries and then basically asked him to leave. Which he did. And he’d been unsure in the beginning anyways. I told him to keep tanking and working on his gear and thanks for trying, hoping against hope that good karma would bring me a good tank.

After a few minutes of waiting for a new tank in the queue, I was like, well, fuck. I can tank it if I need to.

So I take us out of the queue, sign up as tank and healer, then requeue.

30 seconds later, we have a priest healer. Sweet, let’s do eeeeet.

So I tank in the middle, tell them to run to me if they have aggro, if we can get the hunter to freeze something and, if the priest has a second, to shack something, that would be amazing, but not to worry if not.

We coast through the first waves. It was beautiful. I was totally in the tanking zone, I was holding aggro, things were shackled and trapped, it was AWESOME! We kill the first boss and get all the way up to the second to last wave and then it falls apart. We lose the hunter.

That’s okay, one more wave.

We lose the mage.

That’s okay, we have what, two mobs up and the boss is coming, but we can TOTALLY do this. I have 43k health and a ton of cooldowns!

The warrior dies as the Spectral Footman who came into the boss fight with us dies. That leaves the Tortured Rifleman. I get the priest to shackle and we embark upon a long, arduous fight that ends up with her death and my continuing to wear the boss down for another 80 seconds or so. I was judging light, I was using my sacred shield, Divine Plea was active and at about 12k health, I used Lay on Hands. Still going! From 43k all the way down to about 6k, whereupon Ardent Defender finally freaking procs. And then once that was done, I still had a healthstone (leftover from my raid, not from the fail warlock who was in OK with me), so I used that… and then I died.

Way impressive, no? I figured we’d be just fine. But no, the priest drops group. SIGH.

So we go for another healer, and a druid shows up. The druid immediately starts asking why we’re not doing the LOS strat. >< And then, despite not having aggro (hi, I have Grid, don’t you lie to me, you leafy bastard), proceeds not to heal me as much as he probably should have been healing me, doesn’t remove even ONE poison and then I die and we wipe.

We run back. Again. And now the mage has decided she’s had enough. So we get a warlock. Who, of course, doesn’t SS the healer or provide a soulwell.

Once again, the idiot druid fails. I’m sorry, when I’ve taunted off of you and you no longer have aggro on any of the mobs AND I’ve BOPped you just to make absolutely certain half the mobs who are up aren’t going to touch you, you cannot blame your death FROM THE POISONS THE ROGUE STACKED ON YOU, on me. Sorry. Especially when you can cleanse poison off yourself. Seriously.

So the druid does just that, blames me for his death, then says this strat doesn’t work, and leaves the group.

So I left, too. I got up, got ready for bed, then sat back down and queued myself up just as a healer for another random heroic, because really, I was just one emblem short of my damn chest.

And there’s the bloody Halls of Reflection loading screen again. I could have screamed.

The group looks more competant than the others. There’s a DK, a ret pally, a warlock and a warrior tank who has 39k with kings. Cool.

LoS strat? Sigh, yes, LoS strat.

Two wipes, due to the LoS strat, since the tank (and others) kept creeping around the corner out of MY line of sight, but anyways. We finally got Falric down and wiped on the waves after him. I could have left. I had my stupid badge. But the four of them were all from a guild on Caelestrasz and seemed at least somewhat competant, so I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt.

After another wipe on the trash pre-Marwyn, I said that this was my last attempt and that we should make it a good one. The warlock has no shards, so no SS, no HS. /facepalm.

We start in on the trash and even though I have to use Holy Wrath on cooldown to stun things and use Divine Shield/Divine Sacrifice to keep us alive, we made it through to the boss. The warlock even ninja soulstoned me as soon as he had the shards, in the middle of waves. Of course, he then took 4 ticks from every Well of Corruption that spawned on him, but he lived and we lived, and hey, let’s go escape the Lich King!

We wiped on the second-to-last wall because they were killing things randomly and there was still a witch doctor up that the Lich King caught up to and they couldn’t kill before he was on us, because he was a caster. ><

So I advise them to focus the witch doctors and to pop cooldowns on the second wave of the last wall. We escape the third wall easily and are nearly overrun at the last wall, but we all pop cooldowns and escaped. True, we lost the warlock, but he pulled aggro on an abom who cleaved him, so there wasn’t a lot we could do.

Whew.

So all that said and done, I went and got my chestpiece, got +10 stats to it, put in a Solid Dragon’s Eye for 51 stam and a Regal Dreadstone for 10 dodge/15 stam (and to activate my meta). With an elixir of mighty fortitude, a guru’s elixir and a 40 stam food buff and Blessing of Sanctuary, I now hit 40k health, self-buffed.

I was also told, by various groups, that I was an excellent healer (the OK group and the last HoR group, in particular) and that I was a great tank (the HoR group that saw me solo Marwyn for over a minute).  I don’t really believe the great tank business, since I think pally tanks are very overpowered at the moment and it’s all about knowing when to hit your cooldowns, but it’s nice to hear praise about my healing. I take pride in healing and really do consider it my main job in this game. If I wasn’t at least somewhat good at it, I don’t think I’d be doing it at all. Hell, if I weren’t good at healing, I might still be DPSing. Which I’m no longer as good at as I used to be — which is one reason I keep healing.

Anyways, I’m certainly not going to be tanking a lot more than heroics for the foreseeable future, but I think I’m going to keep tanking a bunch of those (at least one a day) to help me get accustomed to it. I still don’t love it or anything, but I do enjoy learning about various aspects of the game and pally tanking is so easy compared to what I imagine warrior or DK tanking is, that I’m just going to enjoy this brief period of time where I’m not loathing tanking.

It’s so hard to imagine that, once upon a time, back in Apotheosis, I OTed Hydross’ adds and Tidewalker’s murlocs… Thank God we got a real OT for those fights after just a week or so of my standing in for them. :P

Heroic Violet Hold and… tank failure?

Kurn / / paladins, ramblings, tanks

So today, I tanked Heroic Violet Hold on my paladin for the random heroic.

No one died. There was a moment or two of concern when we were dealing with the kiting boss, whose name I can never remember, but by and large, I held aggro. And people lived. My healer was never in danger.

And yet, after Cyanigosa died, one of the members of the group (I can’t even remember the class type) told me that I had the worst threat of any pally in my gear they’d ever seen. Then they left the group before I could even go “I’m holy, 95% of the time”.

So, even though the rest of the group laughed and said I did fine, I’m sitting here wondering what, exactly, I did wrong.

It’s true, my spec isn’t maxed for threat. So I could fix that. I could also tab-target more and stack more Seal of Vengeance on various mobs, but if they’re being AOEd down faster than I can stack the debuff, does that matter?

I’m dropping Consecrate whenever I can. I’m also using Hammer of the Righteous on cooldown. Judging Light. Keeping Holy Shield up for the mitigation and the threat.

On single-targets, I’m pretty much fine. I way out-threat most people on Omen without even trying. I suppose it’s just the groups of mobs. If we were all focused on one target (my target) and assisting me for the others, there wouldn’t be a threat issue. The issue stems from people AOEing or not focusing on my target.

So as a tank, am I to spread my threat around beyond passive abilities like Consecrate, Holy Shield and even Retribution Aura? Or am I to expect that good group members will follow my target?

Or, what if I’m really just that bad? Should I then remove myself from the tanking role in the queue and focus on healing, which is what I do best anyways? I could. But would that serve the larger community, to remove a not-terrible tank from the pool of available tanks that seems to shrink every single day?

The way I see it, hybrids who don’t have at least one of their specs dedicated to tanking or healing are fail. They should have rolled a pure DPS class. Paladins can be melee DPS, tanks or healers. Shammies can be melee DPS, ranged DPS or healers. Priests can be ranged DPS, tank healers or group healers. Druids can be melee DPS, ranged DPS, tanks and healers. Warriors and DKs can be melee DPS or tanks.

All the healers CAN be DPS. All the tanks CAN be DPS. And since DPS is basically the easiest job with the least amount of responsibility and, one can argue, the most fun, a lot of hybrids choose to be DPS.

Which is fine.

What I find NOT fine is that, in this day and age of dual-specs, hybrids STILL aren’t tanking or healing. It’s not *that* hard, it’s just different from what you’re used to doing. And with the new dungeon tool, it’s easy to find a group so you can practice. Just make sure you won’t die in three hits if you’re tanking or run out of mana after one group of trash mobs if you’re a healer, and you’re good to go.

So the way I see it, by entering the queue as both a healer AND a tank, I’m doing my job as a hybrid. I’m not entering it as a DPS, which is the most common kind of player available, but as the two most sought-after roles. So… if people live and I hold aggro pretty much the whole time, even if my threat output isn’t amazing, does that mean that I shouldn’t enter as a tank at all?

That said, I clearly need to analyze my threat output and I guess try to stick to the 96969 rotation better.

Stupid perfectionistic tendencies…